Decay-dia Bay
by Avalon1632
Summary: Just the obligatory zombie-fic. When the Virus reaches Arcadia Bay, Max and Co have to band together to survive. Inspired by Zombie-stuff. Lots of Zombie Stuff.
1. Outbreak

Chapter I: Outbreak

* * *

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Ooookay. Did not notice that today wasn't Tuesday. Sorry 'bout that, y'all. It's just this one today, anyway. The others are all nearly done, but I'm not quite satisfied enough to upload them. Yadda, yadda, usual plan holds, yadda yadda. Enjoy.

So, finally finished this one. I had completed it before, but I came up with a better idea (better IMO, anyway) and decided to rewrite it. Like I said in the summary, it's sort of based on a little bit of everything, really. A little Walking Dead (s1 of the game and the series), a little Last of Us, some World War Z (Book and Movie), a dash of Zombieland, a shitload of Resident Evil, even a little bit of Alan Wake (Counting the shadow-peeps as zombies, sort of. Btw, if you haven't played Alan Wake, I HIGHLY recommend you do. It's one of the most fun and involving narratives I've played in a video game ever. So damn good. Plus, the music is fricking awesome too. Poets of the Fall/'Old Gods of Asgard' are amazing.)

The vaguely monologue-style is kind of an experiment, so let me know how that goes. I'm not entirely keen on it. It's hard to keep a consistent Max-voice going backwards and forwards between her telling things from Chloe's perspective in the past and talking to the kids in the present. I'm pretty sure I drop into my own voice more than a few times during. It's why I like the first person perspective. The dominant character acts as the narrator and there's clear boundaries with the other characters. Makes it a lot easier to keep everyone separate and constant. If it's third person, the narrator becomes a new voice to think about, and the most dominant one. Even if it is technically Max speaking, it's not her viewpoint. I'm not sure if any of that makes sense, but hey. Anyways, that's where this one stands, so let me know what you think. And be honest. If it doesn't work, I either need to fix it or change it.

Ok, so, two new things to recommend/fangirl about today. Number One, American Gods. Like, Holy Fucking Crap that show is awesome. Speaking as a long-term fan of the book, they absolutely NAILED it. I haven't loved a TV adaptation of a book series this much since... well. Ever, really. Ricky Whittle and Ian McShane are absolutely fabulous. Whoever was the casting director for that show needs a raise or like, a statue or something. They're totally on point.

Second is a new game called Emily is Away Too. That's a homonym title, btw, too = two. The first game was hella short, but still damn good and this one built on the ideas of the first pretty darn well. Basically, the gist of both is that you're talking to folks over an old-school IM Service. Think Windows 2000-AOL messenger era stuff. Gave me the weirdest sense of nostalgia ever. One of the earliest things I can remember is using Meebo to chat with my friends. Anyways, one of the characters in the second one says Awesomesauce and Deuces and I immediately thought of good 'ole Chloe. They have the exact same 'authentic teen dialogue' that can only be written by 30-40 year old dudes. :D It's about £4.00 on steam and I definitely recommend it to any one of ya.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

* * *

There was a Stranger in town.

Well. Not IN town. Just near it. Two days ago, the Stranger had arrived and quietly set up camp a half mile away. They hadn't actually set foot inside the boundaries of Mamelodi Township once since then. They'd simply camped, and waited.

The gossip mill, starved for hot new topics, fixated on them immediately.

Everyone had something different to say about them.

Some people claimed they were a spy here from a rival town, others said they had it on good authority the Stranger was a saboteur aiming to destroy the town, others still dismissed them as just a wanderer trying to find a home. One genius claimed they were the embodiment of Death here to claim everyone in the town and that only he knew how to avert their wrath. He was drunk at the time, so very few people listened to him.

Everyone did agree on one thing.

The Stranger was dangerous.

Parents warned curious children, teachers warned nosy students. The elderly mostly warned each other. Every authority in the Township put forward every effort to keep people away from the Stranger.

Most people listened.

Of course, there's always one.

Or in this case, three.

The small group of teenage friends had been curious about the Stranger from the beginning. Or maybe they just liked disobeying authority. Either way, they made a plan, lied to parents, guards and friends and crept out of the Township after night fell.

Big problem with warning people to stay away from a particular area. That just means they know exactly where they need to sneak into.

* * *

"Ow! Fucking fence!" I yanked my hand away from the fence and scowled at the blood dripping down my... my... oh god. "Ow, ow, ow!"

Adi didn't even look back. "Shuttup!" He hissed. "You'll bring the fucking guards."

I glared at the asshole and stuck my bloody hand at him. It shook and wobbled all over the place, blurring so much I could barely focus on it. Was that actually my hand? Huh. "Don't tell me to shut up! That fucking fence stabbed me!" That really fucking hurts! It was weirdly distant, though. Like when you sit on your hand for too long and it feels like it's someone elses? Weeeeird. I think I might have drunk more than I realised.

"Calm your shit, Andrea." Adi pokes at the faint trickle of blood running down my fucking leg. "It's just a little blood."

I gaped at him. Condesc... candescending... Asshole! "Just a little blood?! My hand is fucking red, you bastard!"

He scowled at me. "Andrea, you gotta shut up or you really will bring the guards over. You wanna do this, we gotta do it now and we gotta be fucking quiet, okay?"

I immediately shut up, shaking my head frantically. No way I wanted that to happen. Not with all the stories. Adi's brother had brought the guards over. Nobody had seen him in years. "No, no, nononono. No guards. We've gotta do this Adi! Right, Ozz?"

I turned to my little brother questioningly and kind of desperately. I say little brother. Ozz towered over both me and Adi like a big friendly giant. He smirked and shrugged, saying nothing like usual. I nodded. Right then. "See? Ozz agrees we gotta do this now!"

Adi sighs. "Fine, fine. Just be quiet and as soon as we're away from the fence, we'll take a look at that, okay?"

I nod. "Okay, Adi. Okay." Why did the bastard have to be so reasonable? It's not fair. He'd had as much of that bottle as I had. I think. Maybe? I tried to remember how much I'd had, but the memory drifted away every time I got close. Damn it.

He waves at me. "Andrea, hey? Anyone there?" He frowns, his usual annoyingly patronising concern all over his face. "How much did you drink?"

I shrug. "I dunno. Don't really remember."

He sighs. "Okay, well, come on then."

We keep walking.

* * *

I look down at my bandaged hand as we walk. "This is awesome, Adi! Working with the med centre is totally working out for you, isn't it?"

He shrugs, but I can see him hiding a smile. "It's fun. Sabahat is a good teacher."

We chat for a while about it, just enjoying the feeling of being outside the township, of being _free_ , until Ozz suddenly clamps a hand down on both our shoulders and pulls us to the ground. When we look back at him, he nods forward. Cool, we're here!

We peer through the bushes and spot... huh. "Well, they don't LOOK dangerous." Adi mutters.

They really didn't. The Stranger was kind of... small. They had their hood up, so we could only see the bottom half of their face. They were just sitting in front of a fire, staring at it. They poked at it a couple of times with a stick, too. Adi turns to me. "Okay, now what?"

I stare at him. "What do you mean, 'now what'? This was your idea!"

He shrugs. "I didn't think we'd get this far. I was sure someone would stop us."

I open my mouth to retort and... that's when I notice Ozz is standing up behind us. We look up at him, then follow his eyeline to... oh, fuck. The Stranger is looking right at us. They lean back and their coat falls open, letting us see the gun on their hip. "Hi there."

We all freeze for a second. I have no idea what the other two are thinking, but I'm trying to work out how far I can run before they pull out that gun. Adi sticks up a hand. "Uh. Hi?"

The Stranger tilts their head. They look at each one of us, one after the other, then smiles as they look at Ozz. They don't smile at me or Adi. "So, what brings you kids out here at this time of night?"

Adi and I exchange a quick glance and he steps forward."Uh... um, I... that is, we..." He stops and frowns. I laugh and it sounds high and awkward. Where did the confident Adi go? I've never heard him this... stuttery. "We heard you knew how it started. They won't tell us anything, back in the township. About how the virus started."

The Stranger stares at us silently for a few seconds, then reaches up and pulls their hood down.

I think I might've gasped. That might've been Adi though. She's old! Her hair is greyer than my fucking roof. My eyes immediately go to the scar running down her face from her temple through her right eye down to her jaw. "Well, it's true. I know the story. It's been a while, but I still remember it."

She grins widely, obviously picking up on the fact that we're all immediately captivated. "You sure you want to hear it?"

We don't even pause. All three of us nod our heads and walk forward (stumble forward in my case) and plop down next to her fire. Her grin gets bigger. "Okay then."

The Stranger settles back again, poking at the fire with her stick. After a few seconds of shifting ashes around she nods, apparently satisfied. I have no idea why. Then, she starts "It all began one evening, back in 2013..."

* * *

"Get your hands off me, you fucking pig!" The girl growled, drunk on a mix of self-hatred and 10 dollar vodka, yanking her hands away from the cop every time he made a grab for them. Her tangled mess of electric-blue hair fluttered in the light breeze blowing through the alley they were in.

The officer sighed, already exhausted. They'd danced to this tune before. Oregon had no drunk and disorderly laws (AN: This is weirdly actually true. Oregon towns are actually prohibited from penalising or criminalising it in any way.), but Chloe got destructive when she was drunk. Nearly every bartender in the bay had his number on speed-dial. "Come on, Chloe. Just make this easy for us, just this once. You're banned from enough bars here already. Do you really want to be banned from this one too?"

Chloe spat in his face and tried to dodge around him, aiming to get back to her truck parked in the near-empty lot across from the bar he'd just pulled her out of. "Get away from me!"

He moved to block her path, keeping her drunk ass corralled easily. They both matched in height, but he had bulk and muscle to go along with it. "Chloe. You're not driving like this. I owe your old man too much to let you do something so obviously stupid."

Heh. That was a stupid thing to say. There was nothing Chloe hated more than being told what to do.

So she hit the douchebag.

Officer Bell caught her fist on the second strike and smoothly wrestled her into a pair of handcuffs, reciting her Miranda Rights as he did. Two minutes later, she was in the back of the cruiser being driven to the police station, cussing Bell out the entire dogdamn time.

* * *

"Name."

Chloe scoffed. "You know my name, fuckwit."

Bell sighed again, putting down his pen, glaring darkly over the desk at her. He pointedly didn't mention her feet propped up on the desk. "Why do you have to make everything so difficult, Chloe?"

She crossed her arms and glared at him like a petulant six year-old. "Why the fuck not?"

Bell scowled and scribbled down a few more notes before closing the file. It was thicker than her school-file. Chloe had a penchant for raising trouble, which had lead to a list of petty crimes longer than her arm. "Fine, Chloe. Fine. I tried, for your dad's sake, but if you want to fuck up your life this badly, I'm not going to stop you." He stood up, moving over to the door. He threw an expectant look back to her. "Come on. We'll put you in a cell for the night. See what you think tomorrow morning."

Chloe didn't move, staying slouched in her chair. Bell's scowl deepened. "Chloe..."

When she still didn't move, he swiped at her feet, knocking them off the desk. "Move it. Now."

With a sigh, she swung herself out of the chair and trailed after him down the corridor leading to the cells. I wasn't there, but I'm pretty certain she'd have been muttering swearwords the entire time.

The jail in Arcadia Bay was pretty small, and pretty old. It still had bars instead of doors. He lead her up to the first of two cells and gestured for her to go in. She complied, still grumbling and muttering.

The door slid shut behind her with a clang. She followed Bell through the bars with her eyes as he left, swearing under her breath at 'that fucking bastard cop'. Biting off another curse, she paced back and forth across her cell in frustration, kicking at each wall when she reached it.

When she finally got tired of that, she spun and slumped down on the cot. "You've fucking done it now, Price."

* * *

"She sounds like a bitch." I immediately clap my hands over my mouth. "Oh god."

The Stranger laughs, completely unoffended. "She really was. I won't make excuses for her, but she had her reasons for being that way." She takes a deep breath. "We all have people in our lives who act as... the brick and mortar for who we are. These people are..." She pauses as she thinks over what she's saying. "so... completely vital to us, that we take their existence for granted. When they're suddenly not there, we just... collapse into rubble. Chloe lost two of those people. Both suddenly." She trails off with a sigh and just sits, staring into the fire.

I sat back for a second, thinking that over. Adi immediately butted in. His fucking curiosity. "What are Miranda Rights?"

She shakes her head and blinks, flicking her head up to look at him. "Do they not have those in the township? What happens if the guards need to interrogate someone?"

Adi shakes his head. "No. If the Authority wants to know something from you, they take you and they make you talk."

The Stranger snorts. "Hmph. Wowzers." Adi and I exchange a look. He mouths "Wowzers?" at me. I muffle my giggle. "They'd never have done that before the outbreak. The Miranda Rights said that you didn't have to talk, you had the right to legal council and..." She rattles off a list of 'rights', each one more outlandish than the rest. (AN: Post-apocalyptic civilisations always go rather uncivilised, don't they? It's a tad disappointing.)

Adi's mouth drops open. "You didn't have to talk to the guards?" He stares disbelievingly at The Stranger.

She shrugs. "Not if you didn't want to. In the US, anyway. I don't know if they had the same rights here. They were very important at the time. A few people went free because the cop who arrested them didn't read them their rights beforehand."

Adi leans back and stares off into the distance. I put my hand on top of his, trying to be, I don't know, comforting or something, I guess. After what happened to his brother, hearing how it used to be (Apparently used to be. I fucking doubt it.) had to be bugging him.

The Stranger watches us quietly for a second, then goes back to her story.

* * *

A rough voice woke her up a couple of hours later.

"Stupid asshole. I'm gonna need a shitload of stitches thanks to this fuck."

Chloe cracked open one eye and watched two cops drag an unconscious guy through the cell corridor. Neither of them were Bell. She recognised one as Juarez. He was the other veteran at the station. The other cop was a kid, barely older than she was. "That was fucking insane. I mean, he bit you!"

Juarez rolled his shoulder. "It'll be fine, Ian. I'll just head over to the hospital once we get this guy processed. Can probably bill the department for it."

They took the guy into the next cell and dumped him on the pallet-bed in a heap. He drooled on the pallet, blissfully unconscious. The guy reeked of cheap booze, like he was sweating out a whole frakking distillery.

Chloe lay there and watched him, listening to the two cops bicker as they left. His mouth was covered in blood.

* * *

"You got a visitor, Chloe." A rough voice woke her up for the second time. She opened her eyes to see Juarez opening her cell door.

"What?"

He sighed, clearly hella annoyed by having to deal with her and making no effort to hide it. Juarez was after her dad's time, so he felt no obligation to put up with her shit. "Come on. Time's wastin' and I don't wanna waste my overtime on you."

She glared and opened her mouth to retort, but something made her think better of it. With an irritated sigh, she pulled herself up off the pallet and ambled to the visitor room. She knew the way. Down the hall, through the break room, across the hall of offices and turn right.

She kept her eyes flickering over everything as she walked through, just in case. The cops had never given her that hard a time, but there was a first time for everything. The place was almost silent as she walked though. Arcadia Bay had about a dozen officers and maybe a third of them were on duty at that moment, so she never saw anyone. Apart from Juarez' footsteps behind her, the only noise she heard was the news playing on the breakroom TV. "...scott Foundation Laboratories here in Portland have mysteriously shut down. After noise complaints, officers behind me were unable to contact the owners and are now attempting to breach the building in order to investigate..."

The woman waiting for her had a scowl darker than the deep ocean. Chloe didn't say a word as she came, just ambled over and swung herself into the chair opposite her visitor.

After a couple of quiet, tense moments, she smirked. "Hey Mom. Come to visit your delinquent waste of space daughter again?"

Joyce sighed. "I said that once, Chloe, and I apologised for it."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Sure, 'cause saying fucking sorry makes everything better."

"Why do you always gotta be so damn difficult with everythin', Chloe?"

"I dunno, Mom, 'cause shit is so damn difficult with me?" Chloe fired back. The venom in her voice could kill a snake.

Joyce frowned, stared sadly at her only child for a few quiet seconds, then sighed. "I know you've still not gotten past what happened to your dad, but doing this over and over don't help anybody, kid."

Chloe flipped her mom off and, as usual, started talking without thinking. "Fuck off, Joyce." She spat. "You don't get to talk like that about dad, not with fucking Step-douche in the picture."

Joyce's mouth dropped open. Dog, If there was a line, Chloe had passed it a mile ago at a fucking sprint. Her face tightened and the glare she gave Chloe could've melted steel. I'd only been on the receiving end of it once and I had nightmares for a month afterward. "Chloe. Elizabeth. Price. Apologise. Now."

Remember how I said Chloe didn't like to be told what to do? The minute Joyce tried it, she bristled and pulled up her defences, jumping to her feet and yelling into her mom's face. "No! You don't get to talk shit about me remembering Dad when you're screwing that asshole in his fucking house!"

Joyce stared at her daughter mutely for a few seconds, then her shoulders slumped. She shook her head and then, without saying anything, turned and walked out of the room.

Chloe watched her leave, then sighed. "Damnit." She gently knocked her head on the table and muttered, her voice barely audible. "Damnit."

The cops took her back to her cell a few minutes later.

(AN: That was not fun to write. A: I don't like writing that sort of conflict, B: I'm pretty bad at it. I'm a calm person in real life and I can't even remember the last time I raised my voice, never mind talked to someone like that.)

* * *

"She said that to her Mom?" My mouth drops open even further than Adi's had. "I'd get my fucking hide tanned if I talked to my Mom like that!"

The Stranger snorts. "Joyce was a fucking saint, she really was. I have no idea how she dealt with Chloe being like this for that long."

I shuffle around trying to get comfortable on the ground. "How long was she like that?"

The Stranger thinks. "By then, probably about five years."

Wow... We all sit in silence for a few seconds until the Stranger frowns again. "Now, where was I? Oh yeah..."

* * *

She blinked and she found herself in a room. A room she recognised. There was a couch, a dining table, a TV next to a door to the garage.

Her front room...

She frowned, confused. Wasn't she just..? But..? How?

A man walked in through the door. He was tall, had strawberry blond hair and an easy smile. As soon as she saw him, Chloe's mouth dropped open. "D... dad?"

William grinned. "Hey kiddo. How was your morning? You and Max having fun?"

She looked down and found her body had changed. She was young again. In place of her short blue hair and tank tops, she had long blonde hair down her back and a fuzzy Arcadia Bay jumper. She looked up and stared blankly at her dad. "D..dad?"

He laughs. "Did you and Max get into your Mom's wine again?" When Chloe just stared blankly at him without responding, he grinned and waved over her eyes. "Uh, Chloe? Hellooo? You okay? Still with me?"

She dashes forward and wraps her arms around his middle. William laughs and bends down to look at her. "Chloe? Why did you let me die?"

Chloe's head shoots up and she meets William's eyes. Instead of blue, they're pure black as he stares down at her. "You could've saved me, told me to stay, done something to stop it. But you let me die." His head tilts inquisitively. "Why did you let me die, Chloe?"

She backs away from him. "I... I didn't! Dad, you know I didn't want any of this shit to happen!"

He walks forward, step by step, forcing her back against the wall. When she can't move back any further, he leans in and smiles. "It's all your fault."

* * *

She woke up suddenly, sitting bolt upright. Her breaths were coming in quick, short little bursts of panic as her mind ran through the events of her nightmare over and over.

After a few minutes of panic, she started to notice the mess, the flashing lights, and the complete lack of noise.

Daylight streamed through a hole in one of the two windows occupying the wall next to the door to the rest of the station. The door of the cell next to hers, the one the drunk guy had been in, had been ripped off its hinges and was lying in the middle of the room in a mangled heap.

The rest of the room wasn't much better.

The jail officer's desk had been pushed up against the door, random crap was thrown all over the place and, most importantly, it was utterly silent.

Until Chloe opened her mouth. "What the fuck?"

Her articulately-phrased question went unanswered by the empty room.

She pulled herself up from the cot and skittered over to the door.

Locked, of course.

Just her fucking luck, right?

She shook her head, trying to clear the 'just-woken-up-teenager' fog and focused. Sitting in a cell and starving to death wasn't gonna help her find out what had happened, so she needed to get out.

Her easiest way out was to find the keys.

She took a quick look around the room and didn't spot them. Wherever the cops had gone, they'd taken the keys with them.

"Shit." She sighed, bitching about her crappy lot in life for a few seconds. She complained a lot back then.

Time for plan B. She took a deep breath in... and screamed as loud as she could. "HELP!"

The second she did, something lurched over in the corner. "Chl... Chloe? You're still here?"

What she thought was just a pile of trash in the corner rose slowly and stumbled over to her cell. It was Bell.

Chloe looked the officer over, noting his torn clothing and the blood almost everywhere on him. "Dude. You look like shit."

Bell grinned. "Yeah. Turns out..." He coughs for a second. "Turns out I'm not as quick on my feet as I used to be. Heh. He-heh." He laughs wheezily for another few seconds until it turns into a racking cough that shakes through his entire body. "Goddamn, that guy got me good."

Chloe reaches forward and wraps her hands around a couple of the bars. "What the shit happened in here, dude? It looks like a fucking tornado tore through this place."

He shakes his head, swallows a third cough. "I... I don't know, Chloe. I... Juarez and..." He shakes his head again. "They went crazy," He coughs again. "they attacked me, and Ian... Fuuuck." He trails off, staring numbly off into the distance.

Now, Chloe is... unobservant at the best of times, but even she noticed that Bell was not exactly on the right side of sanity. Whatever had happened had obviously affected him. She doubted his story though.

I mean, his partner attacking him?

That was crazy.

Right?

"Do you have the keys? You need to get me out of here, dude."

He looks up at her for a second, then nods as his eyes focus on her. "Uh, yes, yes I do. One second." He quickly pulled out a ring of keys and, after a second or two fumbling with them, unlocks the door.

The minute the door opened, Chloe scurried out, getting as far from the cell as she could. A life on the wrong side of the law had taught her to be wary of cops and there was no way she wanted to go back in there. "Okay, so. What do we do?"

Bell shakes his head. "I don't know. I tried calling out, but I didn't get anything. I think the line is disconnected."

"Shit." She stares at Bell. "Do you have, like, a first aid kit around here or anything? Should probably bandage that hella soon." She nods towards the cut across his chest that was starting to gently ooze blood.

He nods, then grimaces as pain shoots through him. "Yea... Aargh. Damn. Yeah, we do. It's out there though."

She turns towards the desk "So let's go get it then!"

She gets two steps before Bell's hand shoots out and grabs her. "No! We can't go out there! Juarez and..."

Chloe's answering scowl was clear enough. He lets go of her and steps back. "Look, Bell..." She frowns. "What the hell is your first name, anyway?"

"Fox."

"Your first name is Fox?"

He smirks. "Mom was a big X-Files fan."

Ooookay... "Right, Bell. It's all gonna be fine. We're gonna go out there, be hella quick, grab the kit and get back here before you, like, bleed to death or get an infection or something."

He opens his mouth to talk, but Chloe doesn't wait to listen and instead starts pushing the desk away from the door. He protests, obviously, but she ignores him until the door is clear enough for her to squeeze out. "Look, dude. Just stay here if you want, I don't care. But I'm gonna go and grab it, then we can get you to a fucking hospital or something before you bleed out."

She slides out into the corridor. The destruction in the cells was replicated out there too, doors smashed, windows shattered and mess everywhere. Bell slid out after her. "Come on, let's get this over with quickly. Maybe we'll be able to avoid them."

He guided her along the corridor to the breakroom at a slow pace. When they reached the door, he put out a hand to stop her. "Wait. They might be in there."

She rolls her eyes, still not entirely taking his warnings of danger seriously. I mean, would you? He claimed his coworker and a prisoner had attacked him and created all the destruction around them. But, she was not in the mood to argue, so she played along and waited as he opened the door and peeked in. "Nothing. They're not here. Thank God."

She pushed past him and headed into the breakroom. Tables had been smashed, chairs torn to pieces... Whatever had gone on in the cells had passed through here on its way out.

They breezed through, Chloe stepping confidently and Bell creeping through, jumping at every little sound. Since the station was so deathly quiet, every sound echoed and sounded a lot louder than it usually would.

Bell directed them through to a storage locker tucked away in the back of the station. There was a single door leading to a chained security fence with a solid gate, which Bell input the code to and let them in. She immediately went for the first aid kit.

Bell went for the guns.

"Dude. You really think we need those?"

He nods. "Absolutely. They're not getting me this time." He took a shotgun and a series of bullets and cartridges, stowing them away in various pockets.

She shook her head and, when she could get him to sit down and still, went to clean and bandage as much of him as she could. He had three long gashes across his chest and bite marks across his shoulder. Each one was a sickly reddish colour, almost brown, like rust. To his credit, Bell barely winced when she applied the antiseptic.

Chloe had taken a first aid course when she was younger, so she knew what to do. Her hands deftly moved through the necessary steps. When she'd finished, she stepped back from Bell. "Done."

After a quick stretch, Bell nodded. He smiled at her. "Thanks, Chloe. Now we get out before we get attacked. I think I can get us to the door quietly." He started walking towards the armoury exit. "Let's go." Now he'd been patched up, Bell seemed more himself again.

Chloe didn't follow, going to pick up a gun instead. "Do you even know how to use one of those?"

She shrugged. "Point and pull the trigger. How hard can it fucking be?"

"No." Bell was clear. "You'll just hurt yourself, or worse. Me. Leave it to the professionals, Chloe."

After a hard glare, Chloe agreed, but begrudgingly. "Fine. Let's go."

Satisfied, Bell turned and lead the way out of the room. He didn't notice the handgun Chloe snuck into her jacket.

They crept through the offices, avoiding the main hub of the station. "Open spaces," Bell said. "are a bad idea when you don't know where the bad guys are. They can see you, but you can't see them."

So, they stuck to the corridors. Until they ran out of corridors. Bell stopped them at a nondescript door. "Right. It's just a short distance from here to the front." He takes a deep breath. "We're going to have to be very, very quiet, you understand me? Juarez and the other one... they got set off by loud noises."

At this point, Chloe was willing to go along with anything. To her, he might as well have been babbling on about monsters in the dark, but he had the gun, so she indulged him. "Okay. I can be hella quiet."

He eyed her.

"Hey! I can!" She growled, immediately proving his point.

Another glare shut her up. Nothing would be served by standing around. "Just... let's go."

Bell took the lead, holding the shotgun out in front of him. He crept out into the corridor, then took an immediate left into the back office. All the lights in the room had been smashed.

Bell's face fell when he saw the state of the other door in the room. Everything had been stuffed into it, leaving it bursting like a badly made wrap. There was no way they were getting through. "Fuck." It was barely a whisper.

He waved a hand and they went back to the office corridor. "We're not getting out that way." He took a deep breath. "We're going to have to go through the hub."

Chloe shrugged. She didn't care where they went, as long as they got out. "Fine. Let's go that way." When Bell opened his mouth, she held up her hand. "I fucking know, dude. Stay quiet. I get it." She started walking. "Let's get on with it already."

She lead the way this time, sneaking towards the main room, confident there was nothing there. Bell had his shotgun raised the entire time. When they reached the main hub, they stuck to the edges, trying to stay out of view of anyone upstairs. It was a weirdly big room for such a small station. Shattered tables and desks covered the centre of the floor like giant toothpicks. The door they needed was in the opposite corner to the one they came through, in a slightly recessed corridor.

Bell grinned as they closed on the door to the reception. "We're almost there!" He hissed. "Just a little further..."

That's when they noticed the two figures standing between them and the door.

* * *

"Walkers..." I barely breathed the words, but The Stranger still heard me.

She smiled. "Have you ever seen any?" She looked up at Ozz, who shook his head as I did.

Adi stuck up his hand. "I did, once."

I turned and stared at him. My eyebrow shot up so fast it almost ripped itself off my face. "No way you did."

He glared back. "I did!"

I snorted. No fucking way, Adi. "Fine, go on then. When did you see a walker?"

"Two winters ago. They attacked the farms. Dad told me to hide, but..." He grins, that annoying Adi smile. "I didn't. I watched the whole fight."

The Stranger just watches him for a second. Adi's mouth creases and his shoulders sag. "I didn't see the _whole_ thing." He admits. "My Dad and the other workers, they handled the regular ones okay. But then this..." He trails off, trying to work out how to describe whatever the thing was he'd seen. "big, black one appeared. It looked like a big, lanky scorpion, but if it only had two legs. It screamed and I couldn't keep watching. My head hurt, I could barely keep my eyes open."

The Stranger nodded. "A Squealer. They drive infected near them crazy. They get stronger, faster and more aggressive. I can imagine what happened next."

Adi nods. "Yeah. Nearly everyone there died. My dad was the one who finally got it. That was when he insisted I go to the medbay and learn there, instead of working with him."

The Stranger's mouth curled up in this weird smirk. It wasn't like one of Adi's, just a quick flash of humour and gone. Hers looked like she'd bitten a lemon. "That's good. People always need doctors. Now, back to the story. There's still a lot to tell."

* * *

They both froze, but it was too late. Two sets of yellowy-red eyes turned towards them. Bell moved first, raising his shotgun and firing shot after shot at them. The rounds hit one's shoulder, tearing it open and sending it spinning. It let out a quick shriek as its shoulder was turned into squishy icky mush and hit the ground hard. The other had its gut torn open and landed on the ground, twitching and burbling.

Bell didn't wait, opting to grab Chloe and push her towards the door leading to the reception. "Don't stop! They're not down!"

True enough, the two walkers were still writhing, and the first one had already started to climb to its feet. It did have some difficulty, having only one arm, but it was already on its knees.

Chloe just ran. She hadn't believed Bell, thinking he was crazy, and now she was worrying about her own sanity. That was why she didn't notice he wasn't there until she was nearly out. She whirled, spotting Bell leaning against the solid reception desk standing in the middle of the room. The door to the hub was closed. "Dude, what the fuck are you doing? We've got to go!"

He coughs. "I'm d... doing my job. I can't keep up, Chloe. If you stay at my speed, those things will get both of us."

Chloe starts back to grab him. "So we'll run faster! Or you can give me a gun and we'll shoot them. You fucking idiot, those things will kill you!"

"It's my job, Chloe." He raises the shotgun to point at the door, which was now shaking under repeated impacts. "Protect and serve." He grit his jaw and glares at her. "You have got to go." He pulls out a set of keys and throws them over. "You can take my car to get back into town."

Chloe catches the keys and stares down at them in her hand. "But..."

"Go!" He shoves her towards the exit as the frail wooden door explodes inwards, shards of wood going everywhere as the walkers stumble in.

One of the walkers stumbles right into Bell, who manages to push him back with the body of the shotgun. He fires at it until the clip empties, but it keeps coming.

Chloe watched, frozen, as the other walker latches onto Bell and takes a huge bite out of his shoulder, tearing it open. He managed to push the thing off, looses a few shots from the pistol at it, but they both kept coming. He spotted her still standing there and let out a yell "Run!" just as the walker came at him again.

Chloe ran.

She wasn't proud of it, but she ran.

She makes it to Bell's car on autopilot. She got in, turned the key and tore out of the car park, turning onto the road towards town. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck... What the shit am I supposed to do now?"

Her hands shook as she played what had happened over and over. "Bell got attacked by a... by a..."

She took a deep breath and admitted to herself what she'd seen. Zombies. Up until then she, and the rest of the world, had thought of Zombies as fiction.

Now she'd admitted it to herself, she found that... she still had no idea what to do. So, she did what Chloe always did when she was having trouble working out what to do.

She went to find Rachel.

* * *

"Who was Rachel?"

The Stranger smiled.


	2. Insert Chapter Title Here

Chapter II: Recruitment (Chloe) - Day 2/Friday

* * *

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Have y'all seen the announcement for this new game 'set in the life is strange universe'? It's not LiS 2 or anything, but it's a pretty decent sounding thing. Apparently from DONTNOD, and coming on June 26th, and for free. It's called 'The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit'. From what I've heard, the company're going for a thematic sequel rather than a direct one: 'Relatable people facing relatable issues... with a twist of the strange'. Although they also say there are some clues to LiS 2's plotline if you're 'clever enough to piece the clues together'. Anyways, if any of you have seen it (go check it out, for those who haven't), what do you think of the announcements and whatnot so far? LiS 2 has also apparently been announced for this year (the end of September), so we've got that to look forward to too! This is a hella full year for Life is Strange. :D

Also, this has no relation to the fic, but Fun. are really fucking awesome playing acoustic. Check 'em out on youtube. There's a bunch more, but Ramen apparently isn't into nicely organised playlists so you may have to search a little. Other recommendations, Murder by Death (they're like Johnny Cash singing Decemberists' lyrics), After the Fire (specifically Der Kommissar, the song from the Atomic Blonde soundtrack), and Wolf Parade (specifically their new album, Cry Cry Cry. You're Dreaming is an INCREDIBLE song.). All of 'em are on Youtube, and they're all awesome.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

 **Blackadder261:**

It does run that way, yeah. Didn't know that was called a book-ends format, but good to know. Hope you enjoy this chapter too, though a lot less drama happens in this one. Was going to be a little more, but I couldn't get it all written in time to meet my deadline.

And aww, you poor thing. At least it's not Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, I guess? :)

 **Kabeneri:**

Not quite real yet. That comes next chapter. It would've come this chapter, but I ran out of time to finish the next scene, so I'm saving it for the next update.

 **MaxNeverMaxine:**

Thank you! I was worried if this style (apparently book-ends format) would work, so it's really good to know it fits. I know it's been literally a year, so if you have played it you probably don't remember what you thought, but I'd be curious to hear about it if you did!

I should probably start replying to these long-delay messages in the inbox rather than on here...

* * *

"Who was Rachel?"

The Stranger smiled. "Rachel was... Chloe's Angel."

Her Angel? Is... that code for something?

"She'd befriended Chloe at one of her lowest points, and they'd gone through some things together. Things that forged the kinds of bonds that don't come around very often." She flashes a look at me, and there's something terrifyingly perceptive in those old brown eyes. "The bonds you should treasure, if you're lucky enough to find them." Her eyes go sad, reflective. "Chloe found them three times. Once with her father, once with Max, and once with Rachel. Each time, she lost them. Through no fault of her own, but... it had an effect on her."

We mulled it over. I like to think Adi, Oz, and I were that for each other, but... I don't know. Would I be able to survive losing them both like that? And what would I be like if I did?

* * *

Rachel lived in one of the suburbs of Arcadia Bay. Pretty trees lined the road, which was entirely clean, and the houses each stood alone in the middle of immaculately maintained gardens. A true suburban utopia.

Chloe had hit at least three gnomes and a fire hydrant along the road over the years she'd been driving over to visit or pick Rachel up, but this time, despite caring even less about these rich assholes and their lawn decor, she managed to drive cleanly to the Amber's house and skidded to a halt in front of it.

Well, almost to a halt. Chloe was out of the car before it had even stopped, running at full speed up to the Amber's door. It was locked, of course, so she resorted to knocking. Loudly. When that didn't work, she started yelling. "Rachel! Rachel! Open the door! Rach-"

A very confused, mildly alarmed older woman opened the door, and tilted her head at Chloe, one eyebrow raised in a puzzled arch of recognition. "Chloe? What are you- Chloe!" The woman was swept out of the way as Chloe charged in, heading for the stairs.

She was still yelling. "Rachel! Where are you? Rachel!"

"She's not here, Chloe!"

Chloe stops, turns, and glares. Hard. "Where the fuck is she then, Mrs Amber?"

"She's with her Father, in Portland. Now, what is this about, Chloe? Why are you running about my house yelling?" Rose was normally a calm woman, but her daughter's delinquent best friend running around her home using language like that was getting to be far too much for her.

Chloe, open, empathetic soul that she was, didn't notice the woman's discomfort. But she did realise that if she wanted to find Rachel, she had to make sure her mother fully understood the situation.

"This is about the end of the world, Mrs A. The end of the fucking world!" Despite her efforts to stay calm, Chloe was starting to get agitated again. Her motions became frantic; all quick, rapid little things that spoke of nothing but panic and fear. Remembering monsters that previously lived only in nightmares eating someone with whom you had been fighting for years, yet considered a family friend, was a very emotionally confusing thing. Her panic was understandable.

"What are you talking about, Chloe? The end of the world?" Mrs A's bewilderment was also understandable. Generally people talking about the end of the world -before we realised it had actually happened, obviously - were deemed lunatics or doogooders. Or vegans. Either way, they were never taken seriously.

Chloe began to pace back and forth in the front room, little flecks of dried blood scattering over the carpet as her shoes scraped over it. Mrs A winced every time one fell. When she saw the faint red footprint outlines Chloe's boots had left, I hear she almost started yelling. Almost. Rose Amber did have her limits, but she was a quiet woman at heart.

* * *

The Stranger chuckles. "A relic of the past more than any other, being bothered about things like that. It's amazing the meaningless trivialities we can find ourselves focusing on when we're not fighting daily for our own survival."

* * *

"Yeah, fair enough. Okay, uh..." Chloe ran a hand through her hair, wincing as one of her electric blue locks sticks to it, through static or sweat, and gently tugs at her skull. A quick shake of her head dislodges it, and she continues "So, I got arrested last night." Ignores Mrs Amber's gasp of disapproval. "When I woke up in the station this morning, there were these... things. Fuckin' Zombies, Mrs A. They'd, like, attacked the cops, killed a whole bunch of them. The entire station was hella fucked, blood and shit everywhere. Bell, one of the beat cops, helped me get out. He, uh..." Chloe sighed. She might be angry, might burn with the white-hot righteous intensity of it (Injustice had always gotten her fired up, when she was younger. She liked things being fair, and was more than willing to punch the shit out of the universe when things weren't. It was cute.), but she knew guilt. Bell, like him or not, had sacrificed his life to protect her. How the hell was she supposed to handle something like that? "They ate him. They're fucking real, and he was fucking real, and they ate him."

She looked up, met Mrs Amber's eyes. "I don't know shit about those things, Mrs A, but if any of the shit on TV is true, then we gotta grab my Mom, go get Rach and your husband, and find somewhere safe as soon as fucking possible. We gotta... We... we gotta..."

The shake of her hands began to spread, and Chloe's began to feel lightheaded. No matter how she pushed, the feeling continued. All that fire and intensity just drifted away, as her limbs became heavier and heavier, her eyelids began to droop, and her words began to waver. "We gotta..."

Finally, all the stress, the exhaustion, the fear, caught up to her. With a groan, she collapsed onto the carpet, and passed out cold.

* * *

Chloe awoke with a start. She'd never really slept well, not since her dad died. That night was worse. Her nightmares, once the screeching of metal and the squeaking of tires, turned to teeth, to hunger, and to blood.

It took her longer than she'd ever admit to slow her breathing. Nightmares were persistent fuckers. You try to bury them deep, drown them in cheer and good times, but somehow they always learned how to swim. When she finally did, she took a look around. The room was familiar to her, the shelves of books framed by awards and study materials. Rachel's room, a room of someone who'd achieved and would probably achieve more in the future.

She got to her feet, swaying a little as blood rushed to her head. She had no idea how long she'd been out, but judging by the dizziness and the light from the window, it was probably the morning after she'd passed out. A quick self-examination let her know that she was still in one piece, and she'd been cleaned up a little. Her shoes, now shiny and new looking, were sat together on the floor next to the bed. She swung her legs out, laced herself back into her big clunky boots, and headed downstairs.

A faint voice stopped her halfway down, and she crouched, staying quiet and straining to listen. Mrs Amber was talking to someone. Chloe couldn't hear any replies, so it had to be on a phone.

"Yes, yes. I think she's stable for now, but I don't know. Something happened, I think. She was babbling about monsters. Zombies, if you can believe it! Mmhmm. Yes. Okay. Thank you." She hangs up, tossing the phone onto a nearby surface. There's a moment of inaudible muttering before she picks the phone up again, dialing another number. "Come on, come on. These damned phone lines. Why isn't this working?"

Chloe decides to go down then. She probably won't get much more by eavesdropping. The boots clunk heavily on the steps as she clatters down, swinging her way into the open living room-kitchen-dining room that the majority of the first floor of the Amber's home was occupied by. "Hey Mrs A."

The woman smiles on seeing her. "Good morning, Chloe. Are you..." She's hesitant, like she's worried about overstepping. "Are you feeling better?"

Chloe shrugs. "More awake, sure. And my head isn't spinning as much. We've still gotta get out of here though. Do you have a car or something? I'd say we can take my truck, but I'm pretty sure you're not into my ride."

Mrs Amber winces. "Chloe. I... There's no such thing as Zombies. You must've hit your head, maybe taken something that you shouldn't have... You're seeing things that aren't real. You should go home. Get some sleep."

See before, on telling Chloe to do things. She scoffs. Loudly. Derisively. "Yeah, Mrs A. I thought that too, before they fucking ate someone in front of me."

She sighs, guides Chloe to one of the couches. "Alright, Chloe. Sit down, tell me the whole story. From the beginning."

Chloe thought about it. Thought about just leaving, gunning her engine and heading straight for Portland. But, she reasoned, if Mrs A hadn't seen Zombies yet, maybe she still had time. If she could convince Rose Amber that she wasn't crazy, maybe it'd be easier to convince Rachel and her father. Or Joyce, and her Step-Douche. Or herself. Madness shared is madness halved.

She sat down. "Right, so, uh... from the beginning. Yeah. Well, I told you I got arrested, right?"

* * *

She gets about halfway through the story, sometime around when she first found Bell, then she's interrupted by a knock at the door. It's hurried, and kind of sloppy. Less a ratatatat and more of a thockssathockssathockssaaaa. Mrs Amber nods to herself, standing up quickly. "They're here. That's good."

Chloe frowns, her brows furrowing deeply in confusion. "Who's here? Rachel?" Whoever it was, they were still knocking.

Mrs A flashes her an apologetic look from by the doorway. "No. I called the hospital, told them to send someone to check on you. I wasn't sure... I'm not a doctor, Chloe, but there's something wrong. I'd feel better if they-"

The door shatters inward, sending glass and splinters across the hall as a form hurls itself in. A hand lashes out faster than either of the two notice and latches around Rose's ankle, pulling her in. She screamed as she went down, kicking instinctively outward. Her instincts held true, this time, as the heel of her shoe jams into something vital and the form lets go of her with a howl.

Chloe rushes in, brain filled with a litany of panicked words that mostly revolved around not getting her best friend's mother killed. She stopped short when she saw the form's full appearance. It was definitely a zombie, though the snarling and attempting to eat Mrs Amber had given that away already.

Her eyes scrabbled around the room, looking for anything she could use as a weapon. For a moment, she cursed that she didn't still have the gun from the station, but there wasn't much she could do about that now. Wherever Mrs A had put it, it wasn't in immediate reach. So, she grabbed what was: a gaudy lamp, standing on a nearby surface. Now armed, Chloe simply charged in and swung down. The shade shattered across the thing, as did the bulb, and the zombie howled.

Chloe was puzzled. It sounded more hurt than it should, it was only a thin glass lampshade. Maybe it was weak to tacky shit, she wondered? The smell of burning flesh filling the room let her know the answer. The flow of current through the still-plugged in light clearly didn't agree with zombie face.

Mrs A scrambles back away from it, more frantic than Chloe had been, only stopping when her back hit the door of her husband's office. She stared at the thing, mouth opening mutely as she gawked. Eventually though, she managed to process events enough to form words. "That's a... that's a..."

Chloe nods. "Yep. Zombie." And, because she was Chloe and she couldn't resist, adds a quick "Told you so."

"You..." Rose shakes her head, eyes going distant as she disappears into the memory of it. "You did. You really did. How are they-"

Chloe interrupts. "No fucking clue. They weren't here, now they are. That's about all I got."

A few beats of silence pass as Mrs Amber tries to get her head around things and Chloe tries to be empathetic and personable.

As she abruptly begins to speak again, she knows she's failed. "What did you do with my gun?" It might not've been her gun yesterday, but it would be her gun from now on. If this thing went how she thought it would, there weren't going to be any cops around to take it back any time soon.

"I locked it in the safe."

The look Chloe gave Mrs A could've cut iron. Or, well. Maybe butter. "Why did you lock it in the safe?"

"It's what you're supposed to do with firearms."

Chloe very carefully started counting back from ten, taking very deep breaths. "Cool. Well, we're gonna need it soon, so it'd be hella awesome if you could get it for me." When Mrs A didn't move, Chloe knelt by her, tapping her on the shoulder. "Mrs-... Rose? We've got to get moving. Rach could be in danger, if the zombies got to Portland before us."

There's another moment before Rose answers. "O-okay. I'll find your firearm. But then what do we do?"

"We-" Even thinking the words was uncomfortable, painful even. "We go find my mom and my step-douche."

The woman raises an eyebrow at the nickname. "Step-douche?" She asks, both amused and confused.

Chloe shrugs. "He's a prick, but he was a soldier, so he'd probably be hella useful with shooting shit."

Rose nods. She scurries over to one of the pictures on the wall, lifting it away to reveal a hidden safe. A few quick taps has it open, and she pulls out Chloe's gun, along with a stack of bills. At Chloe's curious look, she shrugs. "It might come in useful."

Chloe shrugs. "Not gonna deny that. Cash gets you wherever and whatever the fuck you want these days, right?"

Rose gives a small, polite smile, handing over Chloe's gun while pocketing the money. "Quite." After another awkward quiet moment, she nods to herself, starting to look around her home. "Is there anything else you think we'll need? Maybe a-"

Chloe cuts her off. "Look, Mrs A. We gotta get out of here before more zombies show up. We can talk about this more back at my mom's place." When Rose looked taken aback at the brusqueness, Chloe grimaced. She really wasn't handling this well, and even she knew it. "Look, Mrs A. I'm sorry, but we have got to go. We can come back and get stuff if you want, but right now we need to keep ourselves alive first. Okay?"

Mrs A gave a begrudging nod. "Okay, Chloe. We'll leave now. We will have to take your... vehicle, though. My Husband took our car to Portland with him."

Chloe shrugged, unbothered. "Fine with me." With whatever thoughtfulness she could muster, she adds a quick "Sorry 'bout the mess." because it was worth establishing that fact in advance.

The two of them hurry out, stepping carefully over the body, and get into Chloe's car. Quite rightly, Rose gives the car a disgusted look, and Chloe a distressed one (to which Chloe simply shrugged), before putting on her seatbelt.

Chloe quickly speeds off from the house, roaring past the gnomes, the fire hydrants, the trees, the ridiculously ugly water features, all of which stood safe in the knowledge that death would not visit them this day. She left it all behind as she drove deeper into the town, navigating through back streets to her own home, and the heavily armed step-douche that lived there.


	3. Shots Fired

Chapter III: Shots Fired (Chloe): Day 3/Saturday

* * *

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Fuck it. Saturday is update day now. I seem to be okay at getting two chapters up for then and I'm irritated every time I don't make Thursday so I'm changing the day to avert that irritation because I'm starting to get irritated by it too and it's too weird to deal with.

So, this is just a short one. Half because it was supposed to be part of the last update that I didn't get chance to write in time for it and half because it makes a good lead-in to the next sequence. Also, for those of you wondering, I'm going for a slight variation of the Resident Evil Infection Rules, so no airborne infection everyone-who-dies-gets-it Walking Dead crap here.

Also, trying to write David like he's suggested to be in canon; namely, that whole 'he actually does care, but he's just really bad at parenting so he ends up being an abusive asshole with his care' thing that Dontnod dropped him into at the end. I'll probably mutate it as I go, trying to make him more step and less douche, but for the moment he still has absolutely no idea to parent and deals with Chloe in the absolute worst way. I mean, I get why he's supposed to be acting that way, that kind of... deindividuating abuse is pretty standard operating procedure in the military in order to actually make a soldier as the things soldiers do run completely counter to all normal human instincts (what kind of idiot runs toward gunfire instead of away from it, for example) and the only way to get people to do that (no matter how passionate or psychopathic they may be) is to completely reprogram those base survival instincts, but that's still no decent way to raise a child. Boot-camp removes individuality, nurturing, well, nurtures it.

Seriously though, the psychology of a bootcamp situation is absolutely fascinating, horrifying though it might be. Every single thing that new recruits go through, even before they step off the damn bus, is designed to take normal people and make them into a soldier. Look up stuff like boot camp deindividuation, boot camp abuse, and social identity in the military if you're interested in learning more because I could quite honestly write an entire 10,000 word chapter just on this alone. There's a Quora 'article' titled Why is boot camp so intense? that I think covers the topic nicely for those of you who don't speak the arcane tongue of scientific published study papers.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review

* * *

The trip was as awkward as you'd expect. A girl from the wrong side of the tracks and the wife of the District Attorney didn't exactly have much in common with one another. Rose spent most of the journey being very concerned over Chloe's 'eclectic' driving technique, though most she ever said on the matter was a quiet and faintly desperate "Don't you think you should slow down?" as Chloe veered around yet another corner.

Chloe wasn't appreciative of the suggestion. "Fuck that noise. Gotta grab my Mom and Step-Douche's guns - and maybe Step-douche as well, I guess - then get to Portland already. No way I'm letting Rach get killed by one of those things because I didn't get there in time to kick the shit out of it."

Rose, though grateful for Chloe's protectiveness of her daughter, wasn't sure what to say to that, so she settled for sitting back in her seat and clutching the door for dear life as Chloe took yet another corner at unwise speeds.

Luckily for the state of Chloe's floors (already terrible) and Mrs Amber's constitution (also terrible), Chloe's truck ate up the miles and they ended up pulling into the Price-Madsen family driveway in less than fifteen minutes, easing to a stop with all the grace of a crashing zeppelin filled with drunken elephants. Chloe immediately hopped out and, after a moment, a shaken Rose Amber slowly followed.

They strode up to the door of the house and Chloe barged into it, attempting to shove it open as usual. It didn't budge. The door was locked. With a confused frown, she pulled back and glared at it. "Why the fuck is the door locked?"

Rose, giving Chloe's neighbourhood a worried frown, wondered mildly "You don't always keep your door locked?"

Chloe scoffed at Rose's judgement. "It's a small fucking - shit, language, sorry Mrs A - town. Nobody locks their doors around here." After a second of thought, she tried the handle again. Frustrated and confused, though mostly frustrated, she started to bang on the door with her fist. "Mom! Step-douche! Joyce! Fuckin' anyone, will you-"

A loud bang shocked her backwards as the space where the handle once was was replaced by empty space. She stared in wide-eyed shock at it, wondering who the hell just shot her door. Who shoots a door, anyway? What do they have against doors? It took her an alarmingly long time to realise it could've been her with the hole in her instead of the door. "What the fuck?"

A small voice calls out from inside the house. "Chloe? I-is that you?"

Chloe recognises it immediately. It was her mother's voice, after all. She charges through the now unlocked door (man, shotguns make effective lockpicks), calling out back to her. "Mom? Mom!" Unfortunately for her though, she wasn't paying much attention to where she was going and immediately slipped in the large pool of sticky blood in the doorway.

Her head cracked on the old wooden floor, leaving her dazed and staring into the open mouthed - and very dead - face of yet another zombie.

This was very disturbing for her, a word which here means 'holy shit! There's a dead person on my floor!"

With a concentrated effort, she managed to draw her eyes away from the corpse, landing them on the two shocked faces of the people hiding behind the upturned kitchen table at the end of the hall. Their faces, like the floor, were also covered in rapidly drying blood. She still recognised them immediately. One of them was her mother, after all. The other was just a douche, but he'd been around long enough that his visage was somewhat stuck in Chloe's brain, whether she wanted it there or not.

Without a thought, she scrambled to her feet and skittered over to them. Only at the last minute did she catch herself and slung her hands back in her pockets instead of around her Mom's shoulders. She was far too cool for that. It wasn't the fact that Joyce was sitting on the ground, covered in blood, and Chloe didn't want to seem worried. Or hurt her accidentally. Yes. Definitely not either of those things. "Uh... Hey Mom. Step-douche. What the fuck happened in here?"

David opened his mouth to answer, but suddenly narrowed his eyes at something over Chloe's shoulder. In a flash, he had the large rifle he was clutching raised, and fired a round off at whatever it- Oh. Chloe's mind suddenly realised what his target was and whirled to stop him. "Don't shoot her! Again, I mean!"

Rose Amber stood, shivering in quiet fear, in the Price-Madsen family doorway. Her eyes were locked unblinkingly on the large hold in the middle of the Price-Madsen family photo-board.

Headshot.

David lowered the gun, his brows mashed together in ashamed concern. "Oh God, I am so sorry. I thought you were one of those... things."

"Zombies," Chloe helpfully chimed in, relieved that she wasn't going to have to explain to her Angel how Chloe's Step-Douche had almost shot her Mom in the face. That would've made dating awkward later on.

Joyce, pulling herself up from the ground, shook her head. "There's- augh." A sudden pain buckled her legs and her body flopped limply on the table and she slid back down to the floor with a long, pained groan. "There's no such thing, Chloe. Whoever that man was was just a-"

"A fucking Zombie!" Chloe groaned in frustration, throwing her hands in the air. "Fuck, I went through this shit with Mrs A already, I do not wanna do it again."

Chloe's mouth shut as her mind finally caught up to the fact that Mrs Amber had just nearly been shot and was probably going through the same emotional turmoil as she had been only moments before. "Uh... Mrs A? Rose? You okay?"

Numbly, Mrs Amber nodded. She didn't take her eyes off the bullet hole, though. Chloe suspected she may have been lying. "Come on over, Mrs A. Sit down, get some water or some shit like that. I gotta check on Joyce."

As soon as Rose was settled, glass clutched in her shaking hand, Chloe turned to check on her mother.

For a woman who was usually composed and well put-together, Joyce looked terrible. She was almost entirely covered in blood, and any visible skin seemed to be covered in scattered nicks and scrapes. Chloe tried to hoist her up with a muttered request for assistance, but Joyce wouldn't move to help in any way. Chloe, in response to this stubbornness, simply glared.

Joyce had been a waitress in a trucker-frequented diner for over a decade, so she'd seen some things and developed a considerable streak of patience. At that moment though, Joyce was most unlike herself. She was feeling angry. Her response to Chloe's attempted aid was curt, and almost spat out. "I'm fine, Chloe. Would you just leave me alone?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Come on, Mom. Don't tell me you like being covered in blood now. I'm hella sure there's totally a period joke in there somewhere and - not the time right now, Chloe. Not the time."

She reached over irregardless, intending to clean some of the blood off Joyce's face, when her mother smacked her hand away and growled out "I do not need you condescending to me Chloe. I'm fine, so stop treating me like a damn child!"

Even David turned to look at her when he heard the pure fury in her voice. Joyce was full of Southern Fire and the grit acquired from a long career in the service industry, but anger at someone being concerned for her was... new. "Joyce, are you okay?"

She tries to cross her arms, but the compression of her lungs led to a rapid racking cough that made her response almost incomprehensible. "I'm fine."

Chloe's immediate thought was to call bullshit, but even she had a little more tact than that. Instead, she tried subtlety. "You sure?"

Nobody said she was particularly good at subtle.

Joyce slammed a fist down onto the floor, cracking it with the sheer force of her blow. "I am fucking fine, Chloe! Wouldya'll stop bothering me?"

Chloe opened her mouth to respond with... something, but whatever reply she was thinking of turned into a scream as her mother began to flail wildly about, sending little shockwaves through the floor every time a convulsing limb slammed down into it. Chloe scurried forward to help her, to hold her down or to do... something, but she got knocked across the room by a wayward backhand before she could get close.

David had frozen in shock at the sight of his wife having a fit, but quickly pulled himself together with the long experience of hectic war-zones and charged into the fray to help.

Joyce batted him away as easily as Chloe.

He and Chloe both scrambled back to their feet, trying a second time. None of them saw a way to her without being hit and flung again.

The three standing occupants of the Price-Madsen household understood then that they couldn't get close to Joyce, not while she was flailing like that. They'd just have to wait this out, whatever this was. They were stuck, watching in horror, as Joyce's flailing got worse and worse and her limbs began to slam into the floor with enough force to actual tear through the carpet and crack the foundation beneath it. All the while, she was screaming.

Eventually, after some long, painful minutes - none of them knew how many - Joyce's flailing began to slow, and then... stopped. They waited, finding it hard to believe that it was over, feeling almost confused about it, before they all surged towards her now-limp body.

Chloe went for the neck, checking for a pulse. She sighed in relief when she found one, feeling her shoulders suddenly relax, and she and David shared a grin. Their first ever, at the time.

Rose went with a mother's instincts, checking Joyce's temperature with a hand to the forehead. The moment her hand touched, she pulled back with a stung hiss. Joyce was burning up. Immediately, she turned to David. "She's got a high fever. She needs treatment, as soon as possible."

Chloe was wary, just as immediately. "We can't take her to a hospital! That's where everyone goes in these situations! It's gonna be hella full of Zombies!"

David whirled, eyes alight with anger. "Chloe! There's no such thing as Zombies. We are taking your mother to the hospital. So get your things together and get out to the car, now."

Chloe never did like being told what to do...

She stood, glaring David down. "No. Fucking. Way."

"Chloe!"

"You're not fucking taking her, Asshole. Over my dead body."

Technically it would be over the dead body in the hall, but Chloe certainly meant what she was saying. The idiot adults might have been still sceptical, but she was certain that this would get them all killed or worse.

David stepped forward again, trying to pull himself up and intimidate her with his bulk. Unfortunately for him, Chloe had been threatened by far scarier men than him, and she barely blinked. "Step-D... David. Seriously, this shit is happening." Her mouth creased as she thought of something to convince him, but... "Get them to come here."

"What?"

"Get them to come here," She repeats, slower. "We can't drive her, what if she starts shaking and shit again while you're driving? I already lost one parent to a fucking car crash, I am not gonna let you kill my Mom too."

David's face paled. After a second, he nodded. His chest rose as he took a deep breath and let it all slowly out. Then, he straightened up, and took control. "Alright, sol- Chloe. First thing to do with a fever is to get her into a cool bath, right?"

Rose nods, and David straightens just a little more. "Alright then. Mrs Amber, you call the hospital and get an ambulance here as quick as possible. Chloe and I will get Joyce into the bath." He waves her to the phone, then puts one of Joyce's arms over his shoulders and beckons Chloe over with an expectant 'get-over-here' shake of his head. Chloe obeys, for once, and takes the other arm.

Joyce was heavier than she expected. Her mother, for all her age and working in a diner could've done for her, ate healthily and exercised regularly, so she was covered in corded muscle. Despite the fact that this muscle was hindering rather than helping them, between the two of them they managed to drag her upstairs to the bathroom. They grunted and groaned and bitched at one another all the way, obviously.

When they got to the bathroom, David moved to lay Joyce in the tub, but Chloe stopped him. "Uh, Step- David, I'm no expert, but we should probably get the blood cleaned off before we drop her in a bath. Pretty sure that shit's how you get infections."

He nodded, and took a set of wet-wipes from the bathroom cabinet. He handed half to Chloe and set about cleaning up Joyce's arms and legs. Chloe started with the face. It was as hard as you'd imagine. There's a reason they don't let doctors operate on loved ones. It hurts and distracts us to see those we care about hurt or hurting.

They finished up as quickly as possible and tossed the wet-wipes into the trash in silence.

Getting her into the tub was easier than getting her up the stairs, though not by much. The screen door kept slipping under their wet hands. But they got her in and started to run the tap. It took a little concentration to keep it cool rather than cold, but between them they managed to get something workable.

David sat at the head of the bath, one hand on his wife's shoulder and the other clutching hers, running his thumb gently over the knuckles, staring down at her mournfully.

Chloe left him to it.

Personal growth.

She walked slowly downstairs, her thoughts rolling through her like slow and rumbling thunder that was inexorably whipping itself up towards becoming a storm. Her mother was hurt, battered and bruised and bloody, and she didn't know what to do, and she couldn't do anything anyway, and what the fuck use was she if she couldn't-

Rose Amber's head flashed up from the handset in her grasp, like a startled raccoon. She stared up at Chloe, eyes wide with rapidly growing dread.

The pit of Chloe's stomach dropped deeper than ever before. "Um. Mrs A..? Something wrong?"

It took her a moment to respond, almost like the bluenette's words were moving slower through the air. "They're not coming."

"Um. What?"

"They're not coming. The line is just..."

"Dead?"

Neither of them was certain what was more horrifying; the idea that the emergency services were gone, or Chloe's truly awful joke.

Rose just nods, her mind going immediately to her husband and child who were in the same city as the unresponsive hospital. Astounding herself, Chloe both picked up on Rose's anxiety and accurately guessed the source of it, and moved forward to put a semi-comforting hand on the older woman's shoulder. "Don't worry, Mrs A. We got this. Rach'll be fine, and she's totally fucking - sorry, language - badass enough to keep her dad alive too."

Rose, oddly, seemed comforted by that, though she was disturbed by the language. She nodded to herself, trying to reassure against her worries on top of the comfort Chloe provided. "But what about your mother? Will she be alright without..?"

Chloe shrugged, pulling on her usual shield of nonchalance and disregard to cover the broiling worry beneath. "We'll work something out."

Loud footsteps descended from the second floor (AN1) as David stomped downstairs. His face was dark with anger, his little moustache almost quivering with it. "Is that ambulance on it's way?"

Rose quickly glanced at Chloe, then shook her head. "The phone line is down and I..."

She was almost immediately interrupted by David's loud curse. "Damnit!

"David, I told you we-"

David held up an open palm, massaging his temple with the other. His voice was full of the long-suffering exhaustion most people who had to deal with Chloe's ornery side on a regular basis were driven to. "No, Chloe. Stop. I do not wanna hear it. We need to get your mother some medical attention."

Chloe thinks. "There's drugs for a fever, right?"

"Goddamnit, Chloe. We are not givin' your mother drugs!"

Chloe looks back at him, affronted. "Hey, no! I meant the legal shit! Like, from a pharmacy?"

David tilted his head, mulling it over. After a moment, he nodded. "Hmph."

He didn't say more.

So, Chloe took control. "What's the pharmacy in town called?"

"The Everett Pharmacy. The couple who run it are very nice." Rose smiled, her eyes going distant as if reliving some distant, happier memory.

"We gotta get there. We can buy some shit if the place is still running and... do something else if it's not."

David simply nodded and stayed quiet.

Chloe continued. "And we gotta bring guns."

"No." David spoke, curtly. "I know you think there's a problem here-"

"There is!" Chloe almost growled out. "Why won't you fucking-"

"Because there's no such thing as Zombies!" He stepped forward to her, trying to physically intimidate her yet again. Chloe returned his threat with the exact same disregarding glare as before. "You need to-"

"No, you need to fucking stop. Go and look at the dead dude in our fucking hallway if you want! Even if I'm crazy and that was just some murderer guy and I somehow managed to escape from jail on my own, isn't it better to be stocked up on shit just in case I'm right? There are viruses and shit that can make zombies, y'know. That wasp thing, or the weird ant mushrooms, or like, a mix of influenza and rabies, or-" She stops, shrugging sheepishly as Rose and David both stared in mild shock at her. "What? There was a documentary."

David shook his head in mild disbelief, but Chloe did have a point. He stood and walked past them into the garage, coming back a few moments later with a sidearm on his belt and a long rifle cradled in his arms. Chloe walked over to him, hands outstretched.

David immediately held the gun away. "No."

"But-"

"No."

"Dav-"

"No."

"Ugh. Fine." Chloe scowled. "Come on then, Step-douche. Let's get this fucking show on the road."

As they began to move to the front door, Rose spoke up. "Um... what should I do?"

Chloe turned back to her. "Wouldya keep an eye on Mom for us, please? Someone's gotta stay with her, and I figure you'd be hella good at all the Mom looking-after-people shit, right?" She smiled, attempting to be reassuring. She'd realised she seemed to be doing well with that recently and really wanted to keep up the successful streak.

Rose gave her another small smile in response. "Right. That seems like an excellent plan. I'll go upstairs then. Please do try to hurry back."

Chloe flashed a bright grin. "As fast as we can go, Mrs A."

They exchanged their goodbyes. Rose went upstairs and David and Chloe headed outside. Chloe moved to take her truck, but David cut her off. "We're takin' my car." When she opened her mouth to argue, he rolled his eyes. "It's faster, Chloe. We'll be back quicker this way and I don't trust that junker of yours won't break down on us."

Chloe's hackles were immediately raised by the dig at her baby and she bristled angrily. "Hey! Lay off the truck, step-douche. I don't shit on your shitty muscle car."

The two came to glares once again, neither one of them intending to back down. An idea occurred to Chloe that she knew would sell her point. "Do you really want the only person with a gun, since you won't give me one, to be stuck driving where you can't shoot shit? Doesn't that make bringing one hella pointless?"

"I didn't want to bring one in the first place, so-"

"David."

He stared at her for a few long moments in an uncharacteristic moment of empathy as he focused on the expressions running across her face. His face creased in a grumble as he nodded. "Fine. Let's get going already."

Chloe nodded back, and wisely left it alone. She strode over and hopped into the cab of her truck, waiting until David was seated next to her before pulling out of the drive and roaring off into the town.

"Chloe, would you slow the hell down?"


	4. Save her, save the world!

Chapter IV: Save her, save the world! (Chloe): Day 3/Saturday

* * *

AN:  
Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Sorry for the radio silence. Something truly terrible happened and it's taken me awhile to adjust to this sad new world I find myself in. I found out that... that... I'm a Hufflepuff! Oh the shame! The ignominy! The mortification! I kid. Hufflepuff fo' Lyfe, bruv. Actually, things have been pretty good recently. I've been planning fics out like crazy and now I've got a pretty detailed idea of where each of the fifteen (fifteen! when did that happen, jeez?) uploaded fics I have are going and how long it'll take to get there. Also been doing uni work and starting my final year psych study (I came up with an idea to pilot study my big idea so I can use it for a masters or doctorate later on and use the pilot study as a 'look! it works, okay? you gotta let me do it, you mean 'ole ethics board!' point when I finally get there). Unfortunately, all that has meant a serious lack of time to write until about two weeks ago. I was gonna upload last weekend, but I decided I'd try write four chapters for this update and took another week instead.

My current plan for this month is to get as many of my uploaded stories as possible to the end of 'Act I' (turns out actually planning and structuring things properly helps; who'd've thunk it?), and maybe start putting together an advance timetable so y'all know which stories you'll be getting uploads for in advance rather than leaving them on hold for literal months (sometimes in excess of a year). It's not a concrete plan, but it might work better than what I'm doing now so it's what I'm going with for the moment.

This chapter gets a little... ramblingly flippant? in places. Christ, there are so many run-on sentences in this thing. I was in a mood when I wrote it and I just haven't been able to bring myself to edit it. I'm a Hufflepuff now, after all. A Huffle-goddamn-Puff. Gotta be loyal to my 'original vision' or whatever. *wails in sorrow*

Also, yes. Zombie films exist in this hypothetical zombie-acquired universe. I've never been quite sure how to feel about the 'horror films don't exist in horror film universes' trope. On one hand, it does excuse the genre-idiocy trope that so often pops up in these things, but on the other hand it does excuse the genre-idiocy trope that so often pops up in these things. When you find habits annoying, giving a reasoned, logical explanation for those habits never makes things better. Also, I really can't be bothered coming up with twelve hundred different names for the undead like these shows seem to do (see The Walking Dead game wiki for about a dozen or so variants, including 'geeks', 'walkers', 'those dead chaps, awful handsy aren't they?', and more!) so zombies existing in popular culture lets me have everyone just call them zombies. Also the second (actually third, but who's counting?), my Evernote spellcheck keeps trying to correct undead to unread, so apologies if any instances of that remain and Chloe end up being chased by individuals inexperienced with good literature.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review

* * *

Chloe had decided to be annoying. "So, Davey, can I call you Davey?" She asked, keeping an eye on the road as she babbled baitingly. "I know you're a soldier and all that shit, but I've got experience with these fuckers so I'll give you some tips. Mainly, watch out for the bites, and-"

David sighed the sigh of a long-suffering step-parent. Chloe probably would've called him her 'wicked step-parent' instead, if she wasn't part of the generation that used wicked as a synonym for cool, anyway. "I have seen Dawn of the Dead, missy. I know the rules."

Chloe's mouth dropped open in astonishment and she turned to stare fully at David. Her eyes were no longer on the road at all, unless you counted the sidewalk outside the window on David's side. The car began to drift. "You've seen Dawn of the Dead?"

A loud honking distracted them and David clung bodily to one of the door handles as Chloe's suddenly panicked hands twitched to veer them around the incoming car and back into their lane. After a few hurried breaths and prayers of gratitude for continued life, he muttered "Which of us was actually alive to see that film when it came out?"

Chloe grinned. "Uh, both of us. It was, like, 2004 or something, right?"

David scowled.

Chloe decided to be merciful and left it at that. The next few minutes passed in near silence, broken only by the occasional curse from David as Chloe's... unique driving style threatened his sanity and blood pressure. The familiar site of the water finally came into view as Chloe turned the truck onto the waterfront road. They quickly passed the Two Whales Diner, and both of their minds went to the woman they both worried for. Chloe's voice was quiet as she spoke words neither of the two occupants of her truck wanted to speak, or hear, or really think about in any way. The two of them disagreed on virtually everything, but the one thing they agreed upon was Joyce. "She's bitten. She's going to turn into one of those things, isn't she?"

David grimaced. "I don't know, Chloe. I really don't know. I still don't believe these things exist, but her fever is high and she's not doing well. Remember, if whatever we get here doesn't work, we're taking her to the damn hospital and that's final."

Chloe just shrugged noncommittally, making the truck lurch again. She wanted nothing more than to yell at the man, to reassert her view that the hospital was certain death for all of them, but she couldn't get up the heart to bother. Her mother and her might've had their arguments, their bitter fights, but Joyce was still her mother and Chloe was still her daughter.

* * *

I nod at that. "I get it. It's hard to break up with family."

The Stranger returns my nod with a small, bitter smile. "It certainly is."

Something in the smile - and the hand fingering the gun at her hip - told us it was better to not ask any questions. Not if we valued continued breathing.

* * *

With David's direction, they quickly arrived at the Everett Pharmacy. Chloe haphazardly parked the truck on the sidewalk outside the building and hopped out, rushing in with David hot on her heels. As it was a Saturday morning in a small town, the store was empty aside from the woman behind the counter. David pushed past Chloe and stormed over. "Morning Janine."

Janine, a tall, willowy black woman that looked far younger than her years, grinned up at him and put down the small book she'd been focused on. "Good Morning, Mr Madsen. How are you doing? What brings you by?"

The smile he gave was... forced, and the answer clipped. "Joyce is sick, and the hospital isn't responding to our damn calls. We need whatever you've got for a fever."

The woman's face contorted in obvious sympathy, and curiosity, at the clear distress in his expression. "Oh, no. I'm sorry to hear that, David. I'll see what I've got." She was already moving to the shelving behind the counter, searching quickly through the boxes and cases scattered about there. As she looked, she called out "What do you mean the hospital isn't responding to your calls? Is there something wrong with your phone?"

"No. We don't know what's wrong." A harsh, commanding look from David stopped Chloe's protest before it started. They really didn't know what was stopping the phone working. Technically, anyway. All Chloe really had were educated suspicions.

"Well, once I've given you this," She started dropping boxes onto the counter. "this, and... these, I can let you call from here, if you'd like?"

Before David could answer, Chloe leapt into the conversation with a hurried, "Yes! Hell yeah, that's awesomesauce, thanks."

David just seemed surprised Chloe had said thanks.

Janine clicked something under the desk and a door in the corner snapped open. "The phone is just through there, Chloe. I'll just stay here with your step-dad and run through the medications with him."

Chloe disappeared into the back of the store and picked up the handset to dial.

* * *

I frown in confusion as I realise something. "What's a... 'phone'?"

"An electronic device that lets you communicate verbally over long distances."

"Oh."

That... didn't really clear anything up.

* * *

The hospital line was still dead. So, she called the next best option: home. Rose picked up the phone after barely three rings. "He- hello?"

"Hey Mrs A. It's Chloe."

"Chloe!" She actually sounded pleased to hear from her. Though that was probably just delight to hear from anybody. Being alone in a stranger's house with their unconscious mother that'd just smashed holes in the floor, and with a bloody corpse lying in the entryway, wasn't exactly a comfortable experience. "Are you on your way back? Did the pharmacy have the medications?"

"Yep to both. Step-douche is just grabbing the drugs and we're heading back. How's Mom?"

Rose took a deep breath before answering. "She's still unconscious. I've been dabbing at her forehead with a damp cloth, but... I don't know, Chloe. Being unconscious for this long isn't a good sign."

Chloe didn't want to hear it. "She'll be fine, Mrs A. Just gotta get these meds in her and she'll be fine. Hella fine. Yeah."

The silence from the other end of the line was... telling.

Chloe was about to speak again, to say something else to reassure herself that her mom would be okay, when a voice called out from the other room. "Chloe? We're done in here. Get on with it, sol- girl."

"Sorry Mrs A, I gotta go. We're heading back now. See ya soon."

"See you soon, Chloe."

Rose hung up and Chloe replaced the handset.

When she walked back into the main area and found the two people she'd left there giving her questioning looks, she just shook her head. "Still nothing from the hospital. Shit's gotta be going hella bad there if nobody's answering at all."

Janine's expression became as distressed as David's was. "I wonder what's wrong? I hadn't heard anything about any emergencies..?"

David shrugged, planting a hand on Chloe's shoulder and bodily dragging her toward the door. "No idea, Janine. Maybe try the news, see if they're talkin' about anything happening?"

She smiled. "Good idea, David. I hope Joyce gets well soon!"

Her well wishing was the last thing they heard before the door swung shut behind them and Chloe took the opportunity to elbow David in the stomach. As he buckled, she slipped out of his grasp and punched him again. "You fucking asshole! Why wouldn't you want me to tell her that Zombie shit is going down?"

He groaned as he pulled himself back upright and fixed her with a glare. "Because first, we don't know that it's Zombies." Chloe opened her mouth to retort and David's glare only intensified. The tension in his jaw and throbbing vein in his forehead surprised her. He was making an effort to rein in his anger, which was new. When the two of them got angry, they started to fight. It was inevitable. It was entirely her curiosity at that... restraint that made her listen. "Second, if it isn't, then you look crazy. Hell, even it is, then telling her serves no purpose. Tellin' her to go find out herself covers both bases without us having to stick our necks out."

"Huh."

* * *

While they were stopped at a crossroads intersection waiting for the lights to change - because David insisted road safety took precedence over speed even in an emergency on Saturday morning clear roads - a scream broke the quiet.

David was moving before Chloe had even reacted, his weapon raised and his eyes alert. As he disappeared down a nearby alleyway, Chloe hurriedly (and untidily) parked her truck on the sidewalk and charged after him, slowing when she spotted the volume of clutter and realised she'd have to work her way through it. The adjacent hardware store apparently used the alley for extra storage; it was littered with locked storage crates, secured bunches of palisade spikes, and stacks of pallets. David stopped at the end, putting his shoulder to the wall and peering out. After a quick glance, his eyes widened and he sprinted out, gun raised. The screamer, a young girl, was pushed up against one of the sturdier looking locked crates just ahead of them by a much larger figure. Her attacker was frantically swiping at her with both arms in wild, haymaker swings and snarling down at her. The girl had one forearm pressed to the the man's throat and was peppering his stomach with punches with the other.

Chloe'd seen her around a few times at Blackwell, but didn't know her name. The girl was tallish, pretty, athletic-looking, with long, auburn hair pulled back into a low ponytail. Chloe thought she might've been a cheerleader. As the girl screamed out for help again, Chloe, with her usual subtle grace, immediately yelled. "Hey, asshole! Get away from her!"

The asshole in question wasn't in a place to answer, if his hungry, yellow-red eyes and desiccated, rotting flesh were any indication. The zombie's head swung to the side to stare hungrily at the two new morsels that'd come into its view. The girl took the opportunity to slam her fist into the thing's stomach in a surprisingly powerful blow that should've made it lose its lunch. The zombie didn't seem all that bothered. Turns out being dead was really quite good for your endurance.

When the Zombie didn't get away from it's prospective meal as she wanted, Chloe yelled at David instead. "What are you waiting for? Shoot it already!"

David shook his head. "I can't! They're too close, I might hit her!"  
Chloe turned, stomped her foot, and spread her arms plaintively. Her face was furious. "Just do it!"

Something in the order, whether the bark or the bite, made David's old instincts take over. He raised the gun and fired, taking two chunks of flesh out of the attacker's chest and shoulder. Double-tapped.

Chloe cursed and raced forward, grabbing one of the sharpened two by fours from the stack of palisade spikes. "Fucking useless! I thought you said you'd seen Dawn of the Dead, step-douche! Aim for the fucking head next time!" She took a stance behind the zombie and swung, and the wood connected with the thing's skull with an audible thunk. The zombie groaned, apparently stunned or disoriented by the sudden attack, and Dana took the chance to shove it away from her.

The zombie stumbled back, and Chloe took a swipe at its legs. It fell to the ground and Chloe fell down onto it, keeping her knees dug into each of its collarbones. It wasn't getting up any time soon. Not if she had anything to say about it. She swung the wood down at the thing's head again and broke the flesh of its cheek further, sending little flecks of viscera across the alley. But it was still moving. So, she swung again, and again, and again, and all the while she was screaming in some primal fury at this thing, at her step-douche, at the world that always seemed to want to do her wrong.

Eventually, it went still, and she tossed the now bloody and broken two by four off into the alley, grinning as it clattered over the stonework. David stared at her, the girl stared at her, and Chloe just grinned. Turned out zombie-killing wasn't half cathartic. She hadn't felt that good in years. Not since Max had left.

With a grunt of effort, she levered herself off the corpse - kicking it in the ribs for good measure - then went over to the girl. "Hey, uh... you okay?"

The girl stared.

"Uh..." Chloe rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly, unknowingly smearing blood over that spot, flailing about for something to say. "What's your name? You go to Blackwell, right?"

The girl's stare broke and she started blinking rapidly. A quick shake of her head later and the girl finally focused on Chloe's face. "Um. Sorry. What?"

"What's your name? I'm-"

"You're Chloe... Chloe Price, right?"

Chloe nodded, feeling slightly irritated as her hackles rose at the tone in the girl's voice. Fucking Blackwell. "Uh, yeah. That's me. And you are..?"

"Oh, right." The girl blushed redder than the blood on Chloe's hands. "I'm Dana. Dana Ward?"

Chloe could've groaned. The fucking Cheerleader. "Hey. So, the zombie... uh... it didn't bite you, did it?"

Dana shook her head. "No, I don't-" She flinched and started to check over herself. When she found nothing, she sighed in relief. "No, it didn't." She chuckled.. "Guess all those trips to the gym paid off, huh?" Her chuckles began to turn sort of... manic. "Oh my god that was a zombie. That was a freaking zombie!"

"Yep."

"Zombies are real!" Chloe sauntered over and put a hand on Dana's shoulder as the girl began to hyperventilate. "And one just tried to..."

"Yep." Chloe let her hand circle on the girls back, trying not to get distracted by the feel of the muscles beneath her palm and reminding herself that ogling a trauma victim, no matter how pretty they might be, was in kind of bad taste. "But it's dead now."

"It was dead then! That's why it's a zombie!"

"Actually we don't know if that's why. It could be a virus, or some kinda mushroom or something."

Dana gave Chloe a mildly astonished look as the girl rambled on about the science of zombieism. Chloe quickly shut up, her cheeks flushing. She might've looked dorky, but at least Dana was distracted from her panic. "You don't know? But you knew it was a zombie?"

Chloe shrugged. "Yeah, and I know the Titanic was a boat, it doesn't mean I know how they built it."

"Actually it was a ship." Dana corrected.

"What?"

"A ship is bigger and carries boats. Boats don't carry ships. My... Dad was in the navy."

Chloe leant back against a wall, slightly dazed at how fast Dana had recovered from the trauma of nearly being eaten alive. "Really?"

"Yep."

"Huh."

"So. Zombies."

"Yep."

"Chloe?" David finally spoke up.

Chloe didn't actually look at him, just tilted her head so her ear was pointed in his vague direction. "Yeah?"

"Joyce?" He reminded her, and Chloe's face flushed with red again, this time with guilt for... not forgetting, exactly, but almost.

"Shit. Sorry, Dana. We gotta run. My Mom got hella scratched up by one of these things, and the hospital is fucked, so we got some drugs to try keep her fever down." Chloe turned back to David and the two of them made to leave before a sudden outburst from Dana drew their attention back.

"Wait! If your mom needs help, you can take her to Allers!"

Both David and Chloe turned to look at Dana in confusion. "The clothing store down on third?"  
Dana matched their confused look with a baffled one of her own. "What? No, the clinic off of Jaffe."

Not one confused look abated at that answer. David simply tilted his head in mild disbelief. "There's a clinic on Jaffe?"

Dana nodded, still slightly confused at how someone could not be aware of her clinic despite having lived in Arcadia Bay for years. "Yeah. I work there whenever I'm not in school. It's small, but the doctor there, Doc Abod, is pretty good. He'd probably be able to help your mom, if anyone here can."

David and Chloe shared a look and a hurried non-verbal debate about whether they should. David, quite predictably, didn't trust her. Chloe didn't know her. But between no trained care and unknown trained care, the actually trained care won out. "Okay, sure. Thanks Dana. You wanna come with, then? We can grab your folks once we get Mom sorta stable too, if you want?"

Dana's expression, previously one of somewhat existential fear (as most would have after finding out monsters that previously only existed in fiction were real and trying to eat you) and distress (again, monsters trying to eat you), turned to a smile of unmistakable gratitude. "Definitely." She lets out a wry little chuckle. "I was not looking forward to trying to get home on my own."

* * *

"I am never getting in a car you're driving ever again."

Chloe chuckled as Dana stumbled from the truck, her face almost white with fear. "You're no fun, Dana. You gotta learn to live a little."

Dana shook her head, her eyes going almost distant as she recalled the bat-out-of-hell-off-a-hot-tin-roof-being-chased-by-the-Roadrunner driving she'd just endured, specifically and very unwillingly focused on the one turn Chloe had taken so fast the truck had gone far enough onto the two driver's side wheels that the road was virtually at a 45 degree angle from the window. She very confidently bet herself that it would take some kind of therapy to ever unfocus her from that particular trauma. "I am learning. Why do you think I don't want you to drive anymore?"

Even David chuckled at the validity of that statement. He'd had the... dubious luck of prior exposure to Chloe's driving style, so he'd taken this particular daredevil stunt comparatively well. He wasn't okay, by any means, but at least his therapy bill wouldn't have to go up.

Chloe had locked the truck and the three were preparing to go inside as Dana was chattering nervously about how she liked the house - obviously a lie, in Chloe's mind, as the house was two different colours and the garden looked like it hadn't seen a mower in years - when their relative calm was disrupted yet again by a loud, ear-piercing scream.

David's instincts took over again and he pulled his weapon and pushed the two girls behind him. His gruff instruction to stay there was promptly ignored. Chloe charged past him and through the door, yelling frantically "Mom! Mom!"

The smell of fear is one only vaguely known. The lack of detail - is it pungent? Spicy? Does it have a vague hint of vanilla? - leads most to conclude it's more a metaphor than a literal thing one can experience. Sooner or later though, everyone learns it's all too real. After what she saw that day, fear, to Chloe, smelt of death, campfires left burning, and ginger forever afterward.

The previous destruction of the lower floor of the Price-Madsen Household paled in comparison to how it was when she walked in. The banister was gone, and the spokes were embedded in the wall of the kitchen. The far wall, as the one inbetween had been smashed into smithereens. Planks and tiles of flooring were scattered everywhere, as were bits of furniture, decor, and kitchen attachments.

Of course, the destruction of her family home wasn't much to Chloe. The events between her and her family after her father's death had effectively rendered any attachment she had to the house as dead as he was. What really scared her, what terrified her beyond anything she'd seen before, making her knees quiver and her stomach fill with dread, was the sight of her mother standing shakily in the middle of their living room with a kitchen knife buried in her side. The wound hadn't bled. Her skin was rotting. Her eyes were red. Her hands were bloody. They were too late. The virus had taken hold.

"Shit!" Chloe froze in the doorway, staring blankly at her mother's face. Unfortunately for her, her shout got it's attention. The zombie's face spun around and it peered at her like a curious puppy for barely a moment before charging. Chloe couldn't move, staring at her mother. She'd never seen that look on her face before, couldn't get her head around the hunger and fury in once familiar eyes.

Familiar eyes that were closing on her rapidly as the mouth below it screamed gibberish and gibbered screams. Every instinct in Chloe's body was telling her to get the hell out of the way, but she couldn't do anything except stare in rapidly approaching horror. Seconds before her face would've been eaten off by the possibly reanimated, possibly merely really, really sick corpse of her mother, a hand grabbed her shoulder and tossed her into the garage door. Chloe bounced off it and slid down to the floor just in time to see blood and brains and viscera explode out the back of her mother's head. David's gun hand was shaking as he watched the former body of his wife drop to the ground. He fell to his knees, the gun still clutched in his hand. His eyes never left the body.

"Oh God... Joyce."


	5. On Our Way

Chapter V: On Our Way (Chloe) - Day 3/Saturday

* * *

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Gods the American news is obnoxious. And I don't just mean Alex Jones or Fox. I was looking through some old broadcasts to find out how they might talk about a zombie outbreak and the picture painted was... not good. It's no wonder Ye Olde Backeward Christianity is so popular in your country when even the media talk like fire and brimstone preachers obsessed with the end times. And the amount of irrelevant data designed to influence your thinking is incredible. British Media does that too, I don't deny that, but y'all in the States have practically made it an art form of hype and bullshit. After someone does something terrible, all you need to know is what happened. Telling the audience the murderer/patient zero/rogue graffiti artist's backstory and hopes and dreams or whatever is entirely irrelevant to actually informing the people of what happened. Personally, I think it's blame culture coming into play. The News always focuses on who failed and how - 'oh, the murderer was a quiet man, and authorities noted him as a possible danger, but let him go, and his neighbours never saw this coming' or 'the virus is spreading much faster than efforts to contain it' (an actual quote from a news broadcast on Ebola) - and leaves what actually happened as a secondary issue. There are definitely reasons for the jokes about how lawsuit-happy the Americans are. The News alone demonstrates that enough. "Something happened! Who's to blame?"

Also, yes. I totally followed the entire route from Garibaldi/Tilamook (the developer's apparent real-world inspirations for Arcadia Bay) to the Gales Creek turnoff (End of this chapter) to the Courthouse in Portland (Planned end of next chapter, which will also be the end of Act I). Very pretty route, though that's not surprising. Fuckin' Oregon and their picturesque, ukulele-scored cartoon landscape.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review

* * *

Chloe stood in her backyard, looking down over the grave of her last remaining parent. Now, she thought with a sardonic smirk, she really was alone. Her one remaining human connection was with a prickish old man she hated and who seemed to do nothing but hate her. At least he believed her about the zombies now, she mused. She shook her head, clearing the uncharacteristic optimism, and stared back down at the grave. They hadn't been able to get a headstone, so the only marker was a small rock she'd written on with her trusty marker. She wasn't sure how she felt, burying her mom in the same circumstances she'd buried her beloved cat (RIP Bongo) nearly five years ago, but she knew Joyce would've been tickled by it.

For a moment, she considered exhuming her dad and bringing him down there to give her mom some company. The sheer... well-meaning indecency of it made her laugh. Joyce would not have been tickled by that.

Her dad would've been though. William was weirdly sentimental like that.

Her laughter trailed off, sinking beneath the waves of the melancholic sea she found herself floating adrift on. No pirates on these waters. Here be dragons.

"Goodbye, Mom. I'm sorry."

She turned away and hurried inside, almost crushing her eyelids together to stop the tears falling. The three inside the house let her go past unbothered. David knew better, the other two didn't know her enough. Honestly, Dana would've tried to help anyway, but Chloe rushed past and never gave her chance to. Girl could be quick when she wanted to be.

Chloe only let herself break when her door was closed and locked shut behind her. Admittedly it was unwillingly, and she was still trying to blink away the tears even as she gave in, but break she did. The tears began to fall and she curled up on her bed, her arms wrapping around her legs tightly as she let herself cry it out. Letting yourself cry unreservedly, like she was, could be almost therapeutic. For Chloe, not so much. She'd spent too much of her life crying, and crying alone was never fun. Especially as the crying became sobbing, long choking sounds that she could feel down in her chest. It racked her body until she ached with exhaustion. When the sobbing finally ceased and the tears finally dried, she found herself dropping slowly off to sleep.

She blinked, finding herself back in that familiar front room, slouched over one end of the old couch that still sat there. Through the window, she could see zombies stumbling about in the back yard. A couple of them were crouched over a bloody, unmoving form... _eating._ She swallowed back a tide of revulsion.

Luckily for her sanity, the TV blaring was loud enough to draw her attention away from the nightmare outside. The video playing is even more familiar than the room; her mom all in white and her dad in a crisp suit, both happy and beaming in front of a church and crowd of faces she vaguely remembers from half a lifetime ago. Why was she dreaming about this? The last time she saw that video was long before he died.

"Good times, right?"

That voice, coming from the other end of the couch, sent an ache through her chest far worse than the sobbing. Her dad occupied the entire end of the couch, all rugged plaid and broad shoulders. She practically beamed with delight at the sight of him. His answering smile was almost painful. "Yeah, Dad. Hella good times."

He chuckled. "Second happiest day of my life, marrying your mother." His face took on a fond expression as he smiled at her. "David and I have that in common. Or will, anyway."

Chloe overlooked the mention of her hated step-douche, even over her confusion over tenses (Step-douche and her mom were already married, as much as she hated it, so why the 'will have that in common?'), and asked the obvious question. "What was the happiest day?"

William gave his answer with a lopsided grin. "The day you were born, of course." The grin vanished, replaced with a mournful look. "Today hasn't been a good day for you, huh?"

Chloe swallowed and shook her head. All she said was, "No." and it both did and didn't feel like enough.

He reached out a hand and let it rest on top of hers. It's scant comfort, but comfort nonetheless. "I'm sorry for that, kiddo. But it's going to get worse from here on out. Much, much worse."

Chloe scowled at him, rolled her eyes like the petulant teenager she was. "Jeez, Dad. Thanks. Come back from the dead to give me some good news for once, why don't you?"

His resounding laughter echoed through the room like church bells. "Where's the fun in that, Chloe? Remember, bad news-"

"Is just an opportunity you haven't gotten through yet." She rolled her eyes again, before fixing her dad with her best ant-under-a-microscope glare. "Yeah, yeah, Dad. I remember. You used to say that shit all the time."

"Ah, ah. That's a dollar for the swear jar, young lady."

Chloe snorted and shook her head. "We dropped the swear jar when you died, dad. I swore too much and Mom barely fu- freaking swore at all."

William slumped, almost like a disappointed child. "Aww. That's a bummer. I was really hoping her and David would make it to Paris someday."

The two sat mutely for a few moments, enjoying the quiet of each other's company. After Chloe's last... visit from her father, a peaceful and friendly one was practically a godsend to her. The tranquillity was broken by a loud scream from outside. Chloe flinched and almost spun her head around to stare in horror as one of the zombies in the garden narrowed in on her and her father and closed on the door.

She leapt to her feet as it started battering wildly at the glass, which quickly began to crack under the wiry strength behind each swing. She held out her hand to her father, who hadn't left the couch, seeming just as relaxed as before. "Dad, come on, we've got to go!"

He just chuckled idly. "Go, Chloe? Why would we go? The fun's just starting." He looked up, meeting his daughter's eyes just as he caught fire. Chloe stared as he burned to ash in front of her. The powder had barely settled on the cushion before a mysterious breeze blew in and swept it all away.

The door shattered and the zombie charged. Chloe didn't run, stuck staring at the couch where her father had been with blank numbness. As the zombie's hands clamped down onto her arm and waist, she could feel the flecks of spit and fury on her face. Its teeth dug into her throat and began to tear out her flesh.

She jolted awake, disoriented. The dream... He had been so real... She could almost still feel the warmth of his hand, the life flowing through him. But it was fading now. She unravelled her limbs and pulled herself back upright. She felt dizzy for a moment as she did, as all the settled blood went right to her head, but a quick shake of her head cleared the weight.

Her crying jag done with and thoroughly dismissed, she got to her feet and went for the cupboard. It was the work of a few moments to find a backpack and a change of clothes, along with a torch, a Swiss army knife, and a few other possibly useful knicknacks she had lying around her room, and get out of there.

* * *

Chloe stomped downstairs, still wiping at her eyes, and found the other three occupants of the house hadn't moved since she fled upstairs. Dana was still perched on a stool at the kitchen bar, David was cleaning his guns on the coffee table, and Rose was at the kitchen table staring off into the middle distance. Every one of them looked pensive and miserable. The radio sat on the kitchen bar was blaring with the measured fervour of a news reporter.

"The number of confirmed deaths is skyrocketing, but the virus has been identified and the CDC is working on a permanent cure. The National Guard has been sent in, and the Secretary of Health has ordered a FEMA quarantine set-up around the entire state, an action only made possible by the generous support of The Prescott Foundation. Several local sources have claimed the Prescotts themselves are at the heart of the current pandemic sweeping Oregon, a representative from the charitable foundation has made the following statement." The broadcast pauses for a moment before a new voice starts, this one still measured, but with the self-assured smarm of a career PR-monger. "The events happening in Oregon are unmistakably a tragedy, and it's entirely understandable the victims are looking for something to blame. The Foundation accepts this is a natural course of their grief and we want to do everything we can to help them get past this horrible experience. We're offering full therapy for everyone affected by this tragedy, after they've been cleared by FEMA Quarantine." The reporter starts talking again. "The Governor is advising all uninfected to stay inside their homes and secure all entrances until this problem is resolved."

Chloe scowled at the radio as she went over to take a seat at the table. "More Prescott bullshit. Don't those fuckers know when to let shit go?"

David snorted. "Not likely. Prescott'd be more likely to donate his entire fortune to Planned Parenthood before he'd let a PR opportunity go by."

The two of them paused, staring at one another in mild horror. Avowed enemies accidentally finding common ground tended to have that effect.

Luckily, their foul musings were interrupted as Rose Amber let her opinions be known. "If FEMA and the National Guard are involved over the local state authorities, we have a bigger problem than we thought."

None of the others had the knowledge a District Attorney's wife would've picked up over the years of being married to a man in the higher echelons of law enforcement, so their attention was immediate. "What do you mean?"

"The protocols for statewide quarantine are lax on a state basis, but the reality of a federally mandated quarantine will be incredibly harsh. To give an example, if we're caught trying to cross anywhere except at designated checkpoint, we'd be... we'd be shot on sight."

Her words dropped into the silence like bullet casings. Her quiet delivery had no menace, no threat to it whatsoever. Her sincerity left nothing to doubt.

Chloe could feel her heart rate spike. "What about cities? If they find out how fucked Portland is, what're they gonna do?"

Rose's answer was in an even smaller voice. "They'll mobilise the airforce and bomb the city."

Chloe's mind immediately supplied her with pictures of the horror. She shuddered as she watched the mental image of her friend burn like she had her father only minutes before. "We have to leave. Now." (AN1)

* * *

Once they'd all packed, the group assembled at the front of the house. The stack of bags beside them contained every bit of non-perishable food in the house, clothes and other supplies, every gun David had, and whatever he and his military training thought might be useful. They had entire bag of duct tape, for instance. Chloe had been sceptical about the necessity of that much tape, but when she questioned him about it, he'd just shrugged and said enigmatically "Useful thing, duct tape." and left it at that.

Chloe hadn't really seen the point in any of it, if she was honest. Who cared about food and the apparently miraculous duct tape? Rachel was in trouble and they were standing around packing! How could her mother, who actually seemed like she cared about her daughter, be happy delaying so much when her kid was in trouble?

Needless to say, by the time they were prepared to leave, Chloe was antsy. "Come on, come on! Can't you hurry this shit up?"

David looked over from where he was looking over the last of the supplies. "Do you want to get into a situation and realise you forgot the one thing you needed to get you out of it? Not being properly supplied can get you killed, sol- Chloe. Remember that."

Chloe would've grumbled at the obvious slip, but Dana stepping forward broke her angry stride. "So, when are we going to help everyone else?"

David turned to her in confusion. "Everyone else?"

The girl nodded, the very picture of earnestness. "The town. We can't just leave them, they'll keep running into zombies until everyone is-"

David cut her off. "We're not helping. We have to leave, now."

From Dana's reaction, that clearly wasn't the right thing to say. "What? How can you just leave these people to-"

Chloe cut in before David could piss the girl off anymore. As she started to speak, she felt a momentary pang of surprise at being the one to de-escalate a situation for once. "How would we help, Dana?"

The girl crossed her arms, huffing "We could tell them what's happened, get them to evacuate before-"

"Evacuate from what? A fictional thing? I tried to tell someone zombies existed and had eaten all the cops twice now, and neither of them believed me." Rose and David both had the good grace to look slightly penitent at that. "Why would they? Zombies are fictional, right? What's the point in going around telling everyone something that's just gonna make 'em think we're crazy and not do anything we say? Fuck, I doubt some of 'em'll even listen to the radio broadcasts. Probably think it's a fuckin' hoax or something. And anyone who actually listened is probably smart enough to get outta town without our help."

Dana wasn't convinced, firing back "We could go back to the alley, show them the corpse there-"

Chloe snorted. "People've been trying to prove shit exists with dead bodies for centuries. It didn't work for mermaids, gorillas, or the fuckin' brontosaurus. We'll just get people going to the cop station to report that we probably murdered someone and getting killed for their fucking bother."

Rose, David, and Dana all stared at Chloe in mild disbelief. Chloe stared back in affront. "What? I can't know shit? I can read, you know, you assholes. 'sides, Dinosaurs are hella cool."

Dana shook her head. "That's not the point, Chloe. There has to be something we can do."

Chloe simply shrugged. "So tell us what we can do." She waited for the other girl to say something. Hell, she'd've been happy to have a solution. Chloe might not've given a fuck about the town, but she wasn't a monster.

Dana just wilted. Chloe pressed her more. "If you wanna come with us, we go now. You wanna stay and tell people and get ignored by idiots and abandoned by the smart people who actually listened and got the hell out, be our fucking guest."

Rose gave Chloe a look. Her harsh and unsympathetic tone may have meshed with David, but Rose was a kinder soul that objected to the meanness. "Are your parents here, Dana? Maybe we could go and find them?"

Dana shook her head. "I'm from Wisconsin. My parents are still back there."

Chloe perks up a little at that. "Well, that's good. That they're, y'know, not stuck in this shithole with the zombies and things."

Dana smiled, small and pleased. "Yes. It is." After a few companionable moments, her smile faded. "I guess you're right. But, I know someone I could convince! Juliet, she's my friend. And she's good with guns. She goes hunting every weekend, too."

Chloe looked over to David. "I know my hella natural talent is useful and all, but we could really fucking use someone else who knows how to use a gun."

David paused for a moment, presumably thinking it over, before giving a short nod. "We still need some supplies, though.

Chloe promptly started for her truck. "Awesomesauce. Come on, Cheerleader. You're with me. We'll go pick up your friend and meet the adults at the way outta town. Real quick, though."

Dana's entire form slumped, her shoulders utterly resigned to her fate. "Welcome, Death. Can't wait. It's going to be so fun."

Chloe rolled her eyes, giving an irritable groan. "Shit, woman. I promise I'll drive all slow and boring like an old lady just for you, okay?"

Dana just chuckled, following Chloe over to her truck. "Thank you Chloe. Just remember, if you get us killed with your insane driving, I am so haunting you."

* * *

"Y'know, that was easier than I expected." Chloe shifted around to stare at their new companion, who was sat between her and Dana with a camera between her knees, flicking through pictures on the small screen.

Juliet just shrugged. "I trust Dana. She overreacts sometimes-" Dana elbowed her mid-sentence with an affronted expression and a mouthed 'rude' that got nothing but a small smile in response "-but she doesn't lie." The girl holds up a hand to whisper, sotto voce, to Chloe. "She's really, really bad at it. And my parents are in Portland anyway, so I'd be heading back there with or without you."

Dana's face contorted in the beginning of a scowl before her entire expression cleared and her gaze suddenly fixed on something outside Chloe's side window. "Ooooh, Cows!"

Chloe paused for a moment, glaring at the douchey muscle car a few meters in front of her and mentally cursing the fact that David got Rose and she got stuck with Dana, then turned and raised an eyebrow at the far occupant of her truck. The girl looked ecstatic. Over cows. She was a weird one. "Really, Dana? Really?"

The other girl was almost leaning over Chloe, peering past her with a wide smile on her face as she watched a few cows cavorting in the shadow of a tree. She looked back at Chloe, then jabbed a finger at a few of the smaller cows. They were gathered around a single larger one, likely their mother as all shared similar colouration and pattern. Breeding did make that sort of thing easy to identify, even for a layman like Chloe. "But, she has babies!"

Chloe hadn't intended to roll her eyes, but a lifetime of backtalk and sass made it almost instinctual as she quipped bitchily "And those babies'll make a hella great sandwich someday. Keep your eye on the road, Dana. We're going after people here."

Dana leaned back, her arms crossed and one eyebrow raised. "You're very cynical, you know."

Chloe shrugged. "Yep."

When Dana didn't respond, Chloe spared a glance out the corner of her eye to find Dana watching her intently. Almost studying her, really. "What, dude?"

The girl shrugged. "Nothing."

Chloe scoffed at that. "Yeah, sure. You're just staring at me like I'm some fuckin' algebra whatever you gotta solve to avoid a month of detention."

Dana's cheeks went pink and her nose crumpled as she shook her head. "No, I-"

"Look, just forget about it." Chloe said, not really interested in the answer anyway. "Keep an eye on shit outside. Those zombie fuckers are faster than they look."

Dana nodded and went silent, peering out into the passing wood of the state forest. The road was clear ahead, so Chloe took the opportunity to put her foot down and speed up. David's face of annoyance passing by as she overtook his muscle car made her wholly happy.

They continued on through the forest, enjoying the peace from the horrors of the morning. A peace that was quickly broken when they reached the first lay-by. Huge skid-marks across the road marked it as the site of an alarmingly violent crash. Dana gasped as she saw the bodies lying aside the overturned and smoking panel van. Whoever these people were, the zombies had gotten to them first. Chloe and Juliet watched the corpses quietly as they passed by.

That may have been the first horror they saw on their journey, but it wasn't the last.

The road swept along, joined to the left by the river. A car passed them, heading back to the bay. Chloe watched it go past with perverse amusement. "That fucker has no idea what he's getting into, huh?"

Dana almost looked distraught at this complete stranger meeting such a fate. "We have to get him to turn around!"

Chloe shrugged, and the truck's path wobbled precariously back and forth with the unhurried movement. Dana promptly grabbed onto the dashboard in fear. "Again, why and how? They'd just think we're crazy. 'sides, if you wanna get us to stop, you're the one who's gotta tell step-douche."

Dana's immediate look of mild dread was enough to make Chloe chortle loudly, sending the truck wobbling again.

She straightened the truck out again just in time to hear the screams. And gunfire. And a couple of gas tank explosions. Whatever was happening up ahead, it certainly was action-movie dramatic.

Juliet's head snapped up from her camera, her eyes locked on a turning ahead and left. "The RV Park. Whatever's happening, it's happening there."

Dana, in her kind and earnest tone, yelled out "We have to help them!"

Chloe was tempted to take a second to think - from the sounds of things whoever was fighting had things well in hand, after all - but she quickly thought herself out of that plan. She wasn't sure why. Her point was still correct, and they were still going to rescue the only person she really cared about while on a time limit of death. It really made no sense. But, then again - and she grinned at this thought - very little she ever did made any real sense. She was still ahead of the muscle car, so David would have to follow her if she turned off. Pissing off her step-douche, she almost instantly decided, was more than enough reason to justify this little side-trip.

She wrenched her steering wheel to the left with a confident of delight and the truck screamed through the hardest turn it'd ever had in its long, long operating life. Dana would later insist that the wind arising from the sheerness of the turn had torn one of the site's signs straight off its nails.

Chloe barely bothered parking the truck, simply resorting to abandoning it at the side of the road and launching herself out into the park, gun in hand. Several more gunshots rang out in the distance, marking the location of whoever this living soul was very clearly. Even more clear was the recognisable voice yelling all manner of panicked interrogatives. And cursewords. Lots, and lots, of cursewords.

"What the fuck are you people trying to do? Do you have any bloody idea who're you fucking with? I'll damn well-"

Chloe ran forward with a grin, ignoring the shout behind her from David demanding she wait the hell up. She dashed through the small maze of gardens and alleyways between the mixture of standing RVs and round, wooden-ish structures that signage marked as a 'yurt'.

Chloe drew herself out of wondering what in the hell a 'yurt' was (other than the name of the building in front of her) just in time to narrowly avoid running into a small horde of zombies surrounding a dirty old RV. The man stood atop it had a pistol in his right hand and a bottle in his left. There were also several guns scattered over the rooftop around him, with a couple more poking out of an open box. The man was taking potshots into the torsos of the dead beneath him. Frank Bowers, local drug kingpin, may have known how to deal with competitors, but he apparently had no idea how to deal with zombies. Chloe, without really thinking too much about it, thought she'd lend a hand. She later claimed she wanted to repay him for saving her life from the last drug kingpin, but that was debatable, to say the least. Nobody who knew Chloe would accuse her of such a dire sin as planning and forethought.

"Shoot them in the head, you fucking asshole!"

Really, her intentions were good, even if her delivery left a few things to be desired. Back when she actually attended Blackwell, the teachers had unilaterally agreed to hire her a manners coach in the vague hope (desperation) it might fix her rudeness. The man had fled the school in tears ten minutes into the first session. Chloe only remarked that she was slipping, she was sure she could've gotten him to run in half that. The school didn't try that again, and she was expelled three months later.

Frank's head snapped up to stare in half-shock, half-unsurprised resignation. Unfortunately for Chloe, her volume had also attracted the attention of the zombies, and almost as one they turned to look hungrily in her direction. The moment they started moving, Frank let off a few shots, killing (or re-killing) a half dozen of them before they could take more than a step.

Chloe, with around a dozen more closing in on her, made a quick mental note to be quieter next time she staged a heroic rescue before raising her gun and attempting to join Frank's assault. Her stand didn't last, and she was quickly overwhelmed and driven back under the furious speed and strength of these creatures. She retreated back through the alleys and gardens, dashing frantically from cover to cover and taking potshots where she could, though very few hit. Fear doesn't make for steady hands.

After far too long of playing cat and mouse - or what felt like too long to Chloe, anyway - she ran out into a wider, more open space that ran between the larger columns of parked RVs, only narrowly avoiding a collision with the ravenous horde. With a frantic spin, she dodged under an outstretched arm, letting off a round into the midsection of the owner of the offending limb as she passed. She continued sprinting across the thoroughfare, disappearing into the maze before they could follow. In a flash, she dropped to the ground and rolled under an RV. Barely a heartbeat later, she heard the pounding of charging zombies roaring past her. The moment she was confident they were gone, or at least out of eyesight, she rolled back out and started running for Frank's RV again.

Unfortunately, the RV park, while technically organised, was intensely maze-like for anyone unfamiliar with the layout. Also, Chloe's sense of direction was truly awful. She approached a few of the same places she'd been running through from another direction and found them completely unrecognisable. So, she quickly became, as she would say, hella fucking lost. She could still hear the screams of zombies in the distance, but things closer to her were uncomfortably quiet. After a few minutes of wandering, she found her way back to something she recognised: an RV with a dozen neon-pink plastic flamingos in the front yard.

That's when something shrieked overhead, sending bolts of pain lancing through her entire body as her nervous system rebelled against her. She clapped her hands over her ears and tried not to swallow her tongue. The screaming was unavoidable. Her limbs felt unresponsive, like all her movements were on a delay. She started moving, trying to keep her legs from shutting down, making her wobbly way into the pink-flamingo RV.

She stumbled down the nave of the RV, bumping off and into almost every surface the entire way. By the time she reached the door to the sitting room at the rear, her arms were battered and bruised and her limbs were so weak it was all she could do to stay upright. She had to hold onto the doorframe for a moment, blinking and shaking her head to clear the dizziness. She leant against the sidewall, feeling almost soothed by the sensation of the cold wood against her skin. At that point, she was drowsy enough to be tempted just to stay there and doze off against the wall. Wouldn't be the first time she'd fallen asleep in a ridiculously uncomfortable place.

Suddenly, a loud slamming sound echoed through the room and the RV shook like it was in a hurricane. Chloe's eyes flicked open, the bright light causing one hell of a headache, and she pushed herself forward. She cleared the room in a second, but her burst of adrenaline disappeared as quickly as it appeared and her legs collapsed just in time for her to reach the wrap-around couch in the far corner from the door. With her last burst of strength, she pulled herself across it, trying to hide under the table.

The door collapsed just as she got settled and three zombies burst into the RV. Their heads swept from right to left as they scanned the central corridor of the RV for her. One of them vanished into the front cabin. The other two, however, started towards her. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, and her breath was coming in ragged little pants that she almost felt ashamed of. What kind of badass has a panic attack when hiding helpless from zombies?

Whatever shrieked before did so again, and she couldn't stop another scream from tearing out of her throat. The two zombies immediately zeroed in on her and charged. Luckily for Chloe, she was already screaming, so the fear of these monsters pressing in on her really had no new effects. Every instinct in her body was telling her to run, but her legs just wouldn't get the message. As they reached the centre of the room, she closed her eyes and resigned herself to death for her stupid side-trip. "Sorry, Rach."

An airvent in the ceiling exploded inward in a cloud of shitty construction and air con gases. Chloe caught the glint of a knife in the chaos before a single head rolled out of the cloud, coming to a stop just in front of her, its mouth lolled open and the yellowy-red eyes staring right into hers. As the cloud cleared, she saw a familiar figure screaming profanity and comments about how the dead or infected people hadn't any idea who they were dealing with at the remaining zombie while stabbing it over and over in the torso. With a push of will, she tried to speak "F- Fr- Frank!"

He whirled, dropping the now unmoving zombie and pulling his knife back in preparation to throw. As his eyes met hers, he noticeably relaxed. "Oh. Hey. What're you doing down there?"

Chloe growled in irritation at his casually curious tone. Her mouth still wasn't quite responding to her desire to speak, but she managed to force out "Fucking shrieker thing made my legs go all weird. Everything hella hurts now." in annoyingly disjointed and stuttering bursts. Annoying to her, anyway. Frank didn't seem to mind, just nodding through it all.

He tilted his head, eyes going distant as he listened. "You come here with anyone, Chloe?"

Chloe nodded, stuttered out again. "My step-douche, Rach's mom, and a couple of Blackwell kids. Could you, y'know, help me up onto the couch or something? This shit is fucking killing my back."

He obliged, helping her up onto the cushions. As she relaxed into them, he tilted his head curiously. "Rachel's mom?"

"Yeah. Rach got stuck with her dad in Portland, so we're going over to grab her."

Frank chuckled. "I notice her dad's not figuring in on this rescue, huh?"

Chloe's face took on a dark look. "Would you help that fucker, after what he did? After what you had to do to fix the shitty situation he created?"

Frank shrugged. "Prob'ly not. But since Rachel doesn't know shit about any of that, she'll definitely be pissed you're not helping her old man."

Chloe slumped. "That... is a good point. Fuck."

With a chuckle, he leant down again and looped her arm over his shoulders. "Come on. I'll drop you off with those fuckwits that're wandering around the park. You're parked up by the entrance, right?"

She nodded and, after a beat of thought, asked "Why don't you come with?"

Frank shook his head. "Nah. I got shit to do here. Gotta make sure these dead fuckers-" He kicked the corpse of the one in the doorway. Chloe hadn't even noticed him kill it. "-don't kill off all my customers."

Chloe smirked. "You have the best priorities, Frank." Neither snow nor rain nor the walking dead stays this dealer from the completion of his deliveries.

"Damn straight." Without her really noticing, Frank'd gotten them both to the main thoroughfare of the park and was walking them down the route toward the main entry. She could even see her truck a hundred feet or so away. "How're your legs? Can you walk on your own yet?"

Chloe tentatively put a little more force on her legs, wincing expectantly as she awaited hitting the floor again. Contrary to her expectations, she actually felt pretty good. Her legs stood firm and she grinned. "I think I'm good. Thanks."

He immediately dropped her arm. "Right then," He said. "I gotta get back to the RV. I left Pompidou asleep in the front and the little guy's gonna get sick if he tries eatin' any of those damn zombies."

Chloe nodded absently, her focus gone from the conversation and entirely resting on the four figures walking in from the RV-maze. David looked like he couldn't decide who to be more mad at, his delinquent, idiot step-daughter, or the drug dealer.

Chloe was certain he'd work it out sooner or later, and she was right.

David, despite, or possibly in spite of, her injuries, proceeded to yell many kind, sweet words of concern at her for several minutes. After years of slight variants on the same speech, Chloe c0uld rattle off what he was going to say like a housewife could rattle off her weekly shopping list. So, she ignored him and nodded absently in all the right places, muttering rebelliously where he'd expect. He didn't seem to notice that, or Dana and Juliet's amused looks. Eventually though, when she got bored, she interrupted him midway through a rhetorical "What were you thinking, missy, running off like that?" with an irritable "I'm fine, dude. Nobody got bit, we saved Pompidou and Frank from those things, all's hella cool, okay?"

Needless to say, that did not go over well. David jabbed a finger at her face, leaving it barely an inch from her eyes. Whatever words he said to accompany the wholly aggressive movement were lost to Chloe as she noticed his hand barely seemed to move at all. It was kind of impressing her, really. She'd been shaking the entire time.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts and pushed past him to her truck. "I get it. I'll be careful next time, let's go already."

She left him standing, growling intensely. When he turned his gaze onto them, Juliet and Dana both skittered for the truck. Chloe grabbed his attention and stuck it right back onto her with a sarcastic grin and a "Hurry up, Step-douche. I will drag-race you to Portland, you fucking know I will."

He was in his car half a minute later.

* * *

"So... David's kind of intense, huh?" Juliet asked, her tone far too 'casual' for Chloe's liking.

"He's kind of a douche, that's what he is." Chloe responded with a dismissive handwave. She almost went for a sharp glare and a one-fingered handwave, but the almost begging look Dana sent her midway through sent uncomfortable pangs of... something emotional through her. She changed tack instantly, just to get away from feeling. "The prick just loves to try and control fucking everything."

She sped up past the creepy Mills Bridge/Happy Hollow sign that she could never quite work out what the logo was supposed to represent. Maybe ten seconds or so later she'd cleared the bridge, too. She wondered why Dana and/or Juliet hadn't commented on her stated dislike for her sole remaining parent, such as he was. A quick glance at their faces and a distant flash of a muscle car in the rear view mirror gave her the reason.

Her abashed expression was small comfort, it was only her slowing down that finally elicited a sigh of relief and a relaxation of near-white knuckles from both of them. Chloe didn't bother looking back for David. He could catch up. Probably. She made it past the Wilkerson place and he was still 20 or 30 feet behind. The two-car convoy roared past the rest of the Happy Hollow holiday homes scattered along the main road through the forest. Dana and Juliet didn't bother trying to bring David up again. Between her speed and her facial expression, Chloe was exuding enough 'Don't fuck with me on this' vibes to deter even the most oblivious inquisitor.

Instead, they started chatting amongst themselves about Juliet's parents and where they might be. Apparently, they lived in one of the richer neighbourhoods in Portland: the appropriately named 'Homestead'. Chloe had whistled when that detail came up, and drawled "Shit, Jules. What do your folks do?"

The girl just shrugged absently. "Mom's a lawyer, Dad's an executive manager at an industrial company."

Chloe leant back. "Damn. They must make a fuckload of cash, huh?"

Juliet shrugged again. "I guess. We never really talked about money. They paid for my tuition to go to Blackwell though."

Without really meaning it, Chloe said "Huh. That's nice of them."

The looks on Dana and Juliet's faces at that made it clear they'd both picked up on the anti-establishment scholarship-kid-made-bad insincerity. Dana looked almost heartbroken. Juliet didn't seem bothered. "So, can we check out Jules' parents' place after we get Rachel?"

Chloe didn't really have to think about it. "Sure. Seems fair, you comin' with us and all. What was that Latin shit Keaton used to say when he wanted to guilt trip you into acting better?"

Dana smiled, almost fondly. "Quid pro quo." Her voice took on a pretentious, Shakespearean tone. "My prodigious directing ability requires actors of the same calibre, my dear. Do please ensure you hold up your end of the bargain, hmm?"

She and Juliet both chuckled. Chloe's laughter trailed off mid-rollick as she caught sight of another upturned wreck in the river ahead. Then another. Then another. All three of them stared out to the right, feeling some sense of gratitude and dread that the majority of the vehicles were empty. It could've meant these people had survived, but... it could also mean they didn't, and that they walked away anyway.

A terrifying thought.

Further ahead of that, a house had caved in on itself, and what remained of the inside was smouldering embers. The bones scattered outside the front door were evidence of what had happened to the inhabitants.

The situation really was entirely fucked up. Human Beings, as insanely adaptable as we are, struggle to deal with drastic change. One can go to sleep in one world and wake up in another entirely, one utterly unrecognisable to you. The rest of the world may have been unaffected, but to the Oregonians (AN2) in that convoy, their world had been irrevocably altered by the virus.

They drove on in silence until coming to another burning building, though this one was actively ablaze. "Oh no!" Dana gasped. "That's Lee's Camp Store!"

Adama Lee was a notable figure in the Bay, respected and listened to by all despite his rural upbringing and utter lack of formal education. He had a tendency to be somewhat... irascible, but his wisdom and fairness were unquestionable. More than one person had gone onto great things after talking with him. Even Chloe had met him once or twice, mostly as a last ditch effort from her mother when things had started falling apart. It hadn't worked out. Chloe blamed her parents, or wanted to, at least, for the decline of her home life, so a stranger telling her that she held some of the blame as well wasn't exactly welcome. He'd given her more advice than simply that, but she'd never told anyone else about it. Still. She could be charitable, she supposed. "Yeah. Hope the old bastard made it out."

Juliet, in wild opposition to her brusqueness, laid a comforting hand down on Dana's shoulder. "I'm sure he did."

The rest of the trip went by quickly, though for the occupants of the truck it felt like forever. The number of horrors they saw crawled upward as they got further through the state forest, though they were still few. Thankfully, there was only so much death that could be crammed into a forty mile drive. These things may be spreading endemically, but they weren't pandemic yet.

The one bright spot came about thirty minutes into the trip, when Chloe spotted a familiar trail head. Dana caught her grin and asked curiously. "What's got you smiling?"

Chloe pointed absently, still not noticing the shocked faces as the truck lurched when she took her hand off the wheel. "Ma- a friend and I used to go up there all the time. We had the stupidest fucking joke: it's called Idiot Creek, so I'm pretty sure you can guess what it was."

The joke really was terrible, and none of them laughed, but the other two did smile. With the look of unreserved fondness and nostalgia on Chloe's face, they couldn't not. Dana was a kind and empathetic soul who picked up easily on the hesitancy on Chloe's part in naming whoever this friend was. Juliet had no such compunctions.

"Who was your friend?"

Juliet was kind of nosy.

Chloe just shrugged. She was tempted to stay quiet, but... to her mind, it wasn't like it mattered. The girl had left, so... "Max. Her name was Max."

Juliet opened her mouth to ask something more, but shut it immediately after Dana jabbed an elbow into her side. Chloe felt a little spark of grateful satisfaction. She quickly mentally shouted that shit down. She was Chloe Price! She wasn't going to be grateful to anyone for any kind of emotional bullshit!

Still. After a moment's thought... maybe it wouldn't hurt to tell a story or two?

"There was this one time we were pirates, and-"

* * *

"-and the priest was fucking furious. Needless to say, that shit got us hella excommunicated." She paused for a moment, then added wryly. "Mom was furious. Grounded us for a whole year."

Dana and Juliet exchanged utterly disbelieving looks, then stared at Chloe for a full ten seconds. The girl shifted uncomfortably under their gaze, only settling when Dana broke eye contact with a facepalm. "Oh my God, you're not joking."

Chloe shrugged. "No need to joke, Danesy-" Dana let out a small 'ew' and shuddered. "-this shit is good enough all on its own."

They smelled the next horror first. One can't really mistake the smell of burning flesh. The trappings of such a fate seem to be something ingrained into us on a basic, primal level. As the river disappeared into the forest once more, the thick treeline along both sides of the road thinned enough that they could see the burning campsite littered with corpses to their left. Nothing and nobody stirred there. Chloe gulped, shook her head, and continued in a slightly forced tone, "You wanna hear about the time we accidentally stuck my Grade School Math Teacher's car to the ceiling of the principal's office?"

Both Dana and Juliet knew what she was trying to do, and thankfully grasped the thread like a drowning man would grasp a life preserver. "How do you do that accidentally?"

"Well, we were supposed to get the Principals car, but we kinda... missed."

* * *

Adi laughed. "Sounds like they were a nightmare."

The Stranger just gave a wicked little smirk. I guess she knew whoever this Max was personally? "That would be an understatement. The scourge of Arcadia Bay, those two were. Their pirate theme was driven by more than just an appreciation for eyepatches." (AN3)

* * *

Chloe bore right, catching David's muscle car finally catching up to her in the side mirror. They passed the Legend Garage, which seemed entirely untouched by the destruction that had covered the rest of the forest, and continued onward past the small community of Glenwood. Chloe had the unfortunate realisation that the Garage being untouched probably meant the town hadn't been.

When they reached the small line of shops at the road into the town and found them a pile of ash and embers, she knew she'd been right.

They continued south, all three far quieter than anyone who'd known them would expect they could be.

The next stretch of road had more houses and services on, everything from a gas station to a micro-brewery restaurant, and the destruction only seemed to mount the further along the road they got. The thinning treeline along the roadside let them get a good look at each and every last one. They stayed quiet. They didn't know what to say. There wasn't much they could say. They just kept driving on.

Eventually the treeline thinned out almost completely to their right, opening out into a wide space filled intermittently with various houses and farm buildings. Well. The remnants of those buildings, anyway. The large piece of metal in the road with 'ane' spraypainted on, along with the blackened mount by the side of the road with barely legible 'prop' let them know what had caused that particular damage. Chloe wondered faintly whether it'd been a zombie, or a human trying to fight them that'd destroyed the tank of flammable gas.

It wasn't until they passed Dorman Pond that they came to a problem.

"Well, shit. What the fuck do we do now?"

The road separated into two; the Wilson River highway continued to the left, and to the right Gales Creek road continued Southward. Their original plan had been to take the Wilson River highway along to Sunset, where they could take Highway 26 down until they hit Portland. The large, still-burning hole in the road, along with the various wrecks of cars and other vehicles surrounding the exploded hunk of metal that looked to have been a fuel truck prior to its violent and fiery death, had put something of a wrench into that particular plan.

The area was littered with many, many bodies, both burned and not.

Chloe swerved to a halt and poked her head out of her window, looking behind them and calling out. "Hey, Davey! What do you wanna do about this shit?"

David's muscle car pulled up next to her and he gave her a grimace. "There's no damn way we're gettin' around that. Not without chopping a buncha trees down." There was also the river, which would make traversing the rough terrain around the road even harder. He poked his head back into the car. "Mrs Amber? Check the map, see if there's any way we can go back and head around this mess."

A few moments passed with nothing but rustling before Rose answered. "There's no way around, unless we head South. If we go through Forest Grove, we can head north along the Nehalem Highway." There's another rustle. "At that point though, it might be more practical if we simply continued heading east. We could rejoin Sunset Highway in Cedar Hills here." David peered down at the map for a few moments, presumably to Chloe following the route and trying to work out any other way. David always was the type to do that. Don't trust, always verify. And to her, always try prove his superiority.

When he found nothing, or found nothing better, he nodded. "Right then. You catch that, Chloe?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "I'm not deaf, dude. Yeah, I caught that. We're goin' south, then east, then we follow a highway down into Portland."

Chloe thought he seemed almost disappointed. His face was doing something weird, anyway. Might as well be disappointment to the embittered girl. She'd never gotten anything else from him. "Good."

They turned onto Gales Creek road and headed south, expectant and prepared that they'd see far worse before they found Rachel. Though Chloe and Dana both (secretly) held onto some small hope that turning off the highway would mean they'd be going where the zombies hadn't.

Hell, maybe they'd even find someone alive.

* * *

AN1 - So, I realised Dana had absolutely no reason to go with the group as it stood, what with having no particular ties to any of them or reason to get out of town and not help out her friends and acquaintances. To resolve that, I decided to take the threat of Michael Bay-ing the entire state and helping her friend out. Pretty sure that's a decent enough motivation, huh? :) It's also probably what would actually happen.

Mass Quarantine hasn't ever really been done more than a dozen times and only then on way smaller populations than an entire state and it's pretty much always been controversial, especially in a country where the rights of the individual are so highly emphasised. Most of the laws on quarantine in the US that I've read all have bits saying 'the minimum restrictions' or 'the least restrictive means necessary' and the like. In the states, a country where people are still crowing about their right to own weaponry even in the face of dead children, I imagine the outcry over a quarantine would be... significant and enthusiastic in the early days of a zombie outbreak. Until someone initiated martial law, of course, then the second amendment (along with all other laws) would be suspended pending military approval. Historically, most of these actions were taken and rationalised legally later, but doing it in the modern period of debate and worldwide instantaneous communication would probably lead to a lot of public commentary. If you're interested in any details, I got most of my research from 'The Final Rule for Control of Communicable Diseases: Interstate and Foreign' on the CDC website. Warning, there is a shitload of legalese in there.

Perhaps ironically though, the actions of those crazy gun-totin' nutbags who value their firearms over other people's children would probably be faster than the military itself. They live locally, and tend to know one another due to NRA or Gun Range memberships and organisations. The US Military is not a fast moving entity. Even the National Guard (local military-ish forces) take 72 hours minimum to give a primary response. What appears to us to take days will have been planned for and prepared for weeks or even a month in advance. Logistically, quarantining a state would be a nightmare. Most of the Domestic Military forces are housed in the south (along with the CDC itself), which is probably why most zombie things are set there. Moving enough soldiers to block off an entire state (approx. 200 people per civilian in the target area) would be hard enough, moving all the logistical and supply crap to keep them there for longer than a day would be even worse. It takes about six people to maintain a single helicopter, for example, and that's just the wrench monkeys and mechanics and so on. Then you need people to look after the fuel and find the extra parts, someone to look after (and find) a landing area, etc etc. It all mounts up. Things like Cloverfield where the army shows up in a couple of hours would never, ever happen. It'd take longer than that to do the bloody paperwork ordering them to move. Militias made up of these second amendment types to augment the National Guard response would probably be able to do more faster than the military would.

That's really the main problem. Time. No matter how effective your weaponry or invulnerable your armour, it takes time to make things happen and that means the disease has all that time to spread unchecked. Personally, I think the Triage Quarantine approach of things like The Last of Us would be the most effective. Stick all the uninfected people in a box and wait it out, sending troops out every so often to bomb/shoot the shit out of the hordes in hopes of speeding the wait up a bit. Far quicker to organise, far easier to contain, and thus, far more effective.

Huh. Y'know, I think this might've become less of an AN and more of an AM (#AuthorlyMusing). Egad, I fuckin' ramble sometimes. Apologies. Back to the story, y'all!

AN2 - America, you totally missed out on a great spice pun here. Still cannot believe you don't call them 'oregano-nians'. :D

AN3 - I really like the idea that the OG game's Max-calms-Chloe-down and Chloe-drives-Max-to-Criminality thing was something that happened in their youth, too. It's a delightful dynamic and I imagine that it'd be far cuter than the game was, being prior to the events that caused of all Chloe's crippling depression and insecurity.


	6. Arrival

Chapter VI: Arrival (POV) - Time

* * *

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Just this one updated for today. Figured it'd be better to have one update this week than delay another for two. Plus, it marks the end of Act I for Decay-dia Bay! I was half tempted to call this one 'The Perks of Agoraphobia', for reasons I'm sure you'll get by the end of it, but I decided to stick with the generic. Oh, and I apologise to any whom my terrible political jokes might've offended. It's just the typical US pseudo-conspiracy controversy over near every President you've had amuses me. Far as I can tell, you've never had a 'meh' President, just devils and demagogues.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

* * *

They crossed a river, ran some farmland. It would've been idyllic, a picturesque journey through the true American countryside, if it weren't for the fires and the screaming. Not a pleasant sight, really, but at least it was far removed from their visual range. They kept on south, roaring through the open landscape. The vast fields were dotted with the occasional building. As they got further from the collision, fewer and fewer of those buildings were ablaze. It seemed that, as they had hoped, the infected hadn't reached this far yet.

Further south, they found Gales Creek. The small community had a post office, a fire station, and a few hundred souls living there. As the Price-Madsen convoy came through, a few of those souls poked their heads out to see what all the ruckus was about. One of them flagged David's muscle car down with a wave and a yell. It was an older man, with sallow, sagging skin, and what was left of his hair was grey. His threadbare denim overalls hung loosely on an age-thin body. His eyes though, Chloe found, were gun-metal grey and surprisingly piercing. "What's got you rushin' 'bout, this time of day?"

Dana's bright, desperate eyes met Chloe's and she finally gave in. They were going to try and warn someone.

Chloe pulled up alongside the man and rolled down her window. "Have you been watching the news?"

The man nodded, scoffing. "You talkin' about that virus crap they're all goin' on about?" He wafted a hand dismissively into the ether. "It's all just more crap. Probably just somethin' else concocted to piss on President Obama."

Chloe chuckled darkly, the way only someone bitter about their life truly could "Nope. It's real, dude. Go check out the road back there if you don't believe us. And when you do, get the hell out. Oregon is fucked."

Chloe rolled the window back up and drove off before the man could respond. Dana turned to her, bristling. "Why did you do that?"

"You heard him. The virus shit is just a conspiracy against the president. I told you, they're not gonna believe us telling them anything." Chloe shrugged. "But maybe they'll believe us enough to check out the pile of burning zombies and people back there and they'll realise this shit is really happening."

Dana hmmed and leaned her head on the truck window. "Do you think he'll go for it?"

Chloe shrugged again. "No idea. But it'll be his own fuckin' fault if he doesn't. Dunno about you, but I can live with that."

Dana didn't respond, instead choosing to stare out the window at the town disappearing behind them. They kept on in silence, making occasional hmms of acknowledgement as the horizon of unending farmland was intermittently broken by trees and buildings. At one point, they drove through a small tree farm, providing an interesting combination of the two that caught their attention for a few brief seconds before boredom (and fields) set in again. Who'd've thought that fleeing a zombie infested town and rushing across the state to a damsel's rescue could be so dull?

Not a thing of interest happened until they started to close on the third and final grove on their trip: Forest Grove. Unlike the last two, this one was a city and well-earned the designation. Hell, it even had a university. Being twenty-five miles from Portland, the Price-Madsen convoy expected it to be relatively clear. As the treeline running along the side of their road broke, they found that, surprisingly, it was. But the veneer of safety was broken by one small realisation on Juliet's part. "Where are all the cars?"

"Shit." The roads were completely empty. No cars, no people, no noise. Chloe stopped the car immediately. "Something's wrong."

"Duh," Juliet deadpanned. "There are no cars on the roads anywhere and zombies are a thing. Of course something's wrong."

Chloe glared at her. Juliet met Chloe's gaze with a smirk, utterly unrepentant for her sass. Dana chipped in, pointing off at one of the nearby houses, "And they've left their doors open, too. I think everyone here left in a hurry."

Chloe blinked. "Maybe they heard about the zombies and got the fuck outta dodge while they still could?" She shook her head, trying, surprisingly, to see the silver lining for once. "At least we know there's probably not gonna be a massive horde waitin' for us here." A pretty good silver lining, all said and done.

David pulled up alongside Chloe's truck and stuck his head out the window. "What's the damn hold up?"

"All the cars are gone and the doors are open like people left in a hurry, Mr Madsen." Dana said. "We were just talking about what they might mean."

David shrugged. "Means everyone got the hell out while they could. That ain't no damn surprise, though I didn't expect the virus to have made it here yet. Lets get moving already. We're wasting time sitting around chatting like a bunch of damn washerwomen."

The girls nodded and the two cars sped off again. They reached a crossroads a few minutes later, Gales Creek Road giving way to E-Street as it continued onward. They continued following it, feeling their discomfort at the silence get stronger. A town was supposed to have people and cars and life and seeing one with none of those sent wary little shivers down the spines of each and every occupant of those cars. The pleasant, tree-lined road and general homely atmosphere did little to reassure them as they blatantly ignored the 20mph school road speed limit.

They followed E-Street along to the main artery of the city: Pacific Avenue. Again, it was completely empty. A town of twenty five thousand people and there wasn't a whit of evidence of anyone. It was only when they began to skirt the lower edge of the University campus that they found where a city of people had chosen to flee to.

The buildings were surrounded by a sea of vehicles. It looked like people had started arriving normally, but the rapidly decreasing available space had lead people to park anywhere they could in easy walking distance. It was almost like the university had a moat of cars. Chloe started to point out how cool a defence that was, but stopped as she caught a glance through the windows. The inside of the building was like a charnel house. While she couldn't see any actual zombies, the blood over every surface inside was evidence enough for her. Even she couldn't make light of that, instead of her planned compliments of the defences, all that came out was a strangled "Oh fuck..." of horror that trailed off into disbelief. Twenty five people all crammed into an enclosed space with zombies... That wasn't just a slaughter, that was a _nightmare_.

She averted her gaze and sped up, wanting more than ever to find Rachel. She needed to see, with her own two eyes, that her friend was okay.

She spared a glance to her side and saw Juliet had wrapped her arm around Dana, who was shaking lightly and staring blankly off into the distance. Chloe caught a few of her low, disbelieving mutterings. "All those people... Those poor people..."

There wasn't much she could say to make this better, so Chloe stayed silent and kept driving. The city went back to the silent emptiness, but there was a new, sinister quality to it now they knew the reason why. It wasn't the quiet of a ghost town, it was the quiet of a mass graveyard.

They were all glad when the town was nothing but a speck in Chloe's rear view mirror. The road followed through from Forest Grove to Cornelius. Chloe made the obligatory derisive comments about shitty town names as they went through. Nothing much happened. The three towns being so close apparently meant all the populace had been able to evacuate to the university and the majority chose to take that option.

Unfortunate for them, but fortunately for the Price-Madsen convoy, it meant the roads remained clear all the way out of town. Dana was quiet the entire time. Seemed that the faint glances of a massacre she'd gotten were too much for her to wrap her head around. Not surprising, really. Dealing with that kind of blood doesn't come easy without experience.

Lucky for all of their sanities, they left the Dead grove behind them and continued onward to Hillsboro. They'd expected more of the same, but... they were pleasantly surprised.

The city wasn't as... populous as it should be, but there were people out and about. Juliet was staring at them in confusion. "Don't they know what's happening?"

Chloe shrugged. "No idea. You wanna ask?"

Dana nodded. With a mild huff, Chloe pulled over and waved a guy down. He was pretty young, clean-shaved, kinda well-dressed, and he was surprisingly attentive. "Yes? Can I help you, miss?"

"Aren't you guys, y'know, running from the zombies?" Chloe asked, almost hesitantly. Which for her meant brusque and abrupt for most people.

The man shook his head. "No miss. We're not afraid. This is the first sign of the Apocalypse, and soon our Lord will rapture up the faithful to-"

Chloe drove off. David and Rose only followed after a few more minutes. Chloe had no idea why they bothered, turning to the other occupants of her cab as the people vanished and giving an eyerolling "Yep. They're Bible bashers."

The two largest concentrations of people they saw were around a thinbrick veneer church and a community hospital. Seeing that many people still alive and relatively happy was quite the mood raiser after what they'd seen before. The songs they were singing, joyous and ecstatic, resonated through the streets around the buildings. Dana and Chloe both turned themselves to watch the Church go by, grinning at the sounds.

Suddenly, Juliet pointed with a shout. "Turn left here!"

Chloe veered to the left. The harsh turn went by for them almost in slow motion. They could practically see their startled grimaces in the window of the Wallgreens they glided by.

Chloe shook her head and cleared the fog of distraction, then turned back to Juliet. "So, uh... why did we need to turn so fuckin' urgently?"

Juliet pointed to the map. "If we turned here, we can head north on Cornell and go past the airport, then turn onto Sunset like we planned."

Chloe was about to respond when she remembered the last time she'd seen the map. "Hey wait, didn't Mrs Amber have the map before?"

Juliet nodded. "We swapped it over when you stopped to talk to that guy back there." She pointed to another thing on it, a little further north of the last marker. "Look, we can head up through Brookwood after the airport, or we keep going and head through Tanasbourne and rejoin Sunset at the junction here."

Chloe suddenly twisted the wheel, swerving the car back onto the road from where she'd drifted off it. Not paying attention to where you were going was really a bad idea. Especially going past the police department. As previously established, Chloe was more than experienced at pissing off the cops.

Cornell was a pleasant road, lined with trees and cute little bungalows. In one of the first signs of actual distress they'd seen, someone had abandoned a bike on the sidewalk. They followed it along in near silence, until Dana broke it. "So, what do we do when we get to Portland? Do you know where Rach is?"

Chloe gestured for her to bring the map closer, then aimlessly swatted at it until she found the right spot. "There. The courthouse. That's where her dad was supposed to be taking her, anyway. She probably got outta there when the zombies started fucking shit up, but there's gotta be clues around there about where she went."

Juliet studied the area intently. "So, if we come through Sunset, we should get right up to it here!"

Chloe nodded. "Yep. Right through Goose Hollow - hella stupid name - and straight into Downtown."

"And then," Dana added enthusiastically "We can go straight south and pick up your parents in Homestead! Then, we can cross the river and head North to Seattle!"

Chloe shivered. Seattle. The place that'd taken so much from her, even though she'd never been.

* * *

"How does a place take something from someone if they've never been?" Adi pursed his lips in confusion. "Were there monsters there?"

The Stranger shook her head. "No, just a best friend who didn't do what she should've." The woman sighed, rubbed at the scar on her face. "Do you remember when I said that Chloe had lost a lot of people? And that she'd lost someone called Max?"

We all gave the obligatory 'uh-huh' sounds.

"Well, that was where Max went. She left when her parents got new jobs and then never talked to Chloe again."

My mouth dropped open. "She did? Why? How could she do that?"

The Stranger smiled sadly. "I have no idea. It just seemed like the easier thing to do at the time, I guess."

Adi crossed his arms. "Well, it's wrong. We wouldn't do that, would we Andrea?"

I beamed at him and laid a hand on his arm. "No way, Adi." Os's meaty paws thocked down onto both of our shoulders, jolting us and causing us both to laugh.

"So, did they get there and find her or something?" I asked.

The Stranger smiled, enigmatic as always, and said simply "Lets continue the story, and you can find out."

* * *

Chloe had passed off the rest of the planning to Dana and Juliet, who'd taken to pouring over the map and pointing out different routes they could take. Dana, a lifelong Girl Scout, had recommended they have a few meeting places prearranged, just in case they got separated. So, the two were currently marking various spots that were either out of the way enough or secure enough to use, all in an obnoxiously vibrant red pen they'd taken from Chloe's glovebox - much to her chagrin.

They kept on, passing the line of shops that'd replaced the cute bungalows and heading up to the aviation campus. They had a museum and an academy, in addition to the airport, hence the 'campus'. Massive sprawls of corrugated metal barns and gleaming white brick hangers sat in the fields to their left. Eyesores, every last one of 'em. They were only a short distance away from the airport now. If they didn't only have a few miles to go, they'd probably have tried to steal a plane. Until David stopped them, anyway. He was no fun.

They'd just started to pass by the academy when the sky ahead of them exploded.

Red and orange scoured the horizon behind the trees ahead like the northern lights as done by a pyromaniac. Even at a distance, they could feel the heat of it on the blast breeze that buffeted them around like kites. For them, the worst part was the sound. Namely, the sudden, deafening lack of it. The sound had shattered their hearing as effectively as the flames had scoured the countryside. They shook their heads, trying to clear the sudden fogginess that'd struck them. The fire continued to rage ahead. After a few minutes of watching the blaze in shocked silence - except for Chloe, who spent the entire time wiggling her finger in her ear and mute-yelling cursewords - their ears popped and their hearing suddenly came back in a roar.

"-ucking piece of shi-" Chloe suddenly went quiet and flushed red, then glared at Dana and Juliet, daring them to laugh.

They didn't.

"What. The. Hell. Was. That?!" David's voice was almost as loud as the explosions. Chloe could've chuckled, if her good mood hadn't been obliterated by the sight ahead and the still lingering dizziness. Were those trees wobbling? She pushed down on the accelerator and lurched the truck forward, pulling over to the side of David's muscle car at the very last moment. Not deliberately, she was just having trouble... concentrating. The screech was very annoying.

"I think it was an explosion." She said, dryly.

David barely turned his head, but she could see the muscles clenched in his jaw and knew he was holding back a furious tirade at her cheek. "I know it was an explosion, damnit, but what the hell caused it?!"

Chloe shrugged. "Probably zombies?"

"Probably..." He bit back another retort and turned fully to face her. "That kind of explosion was big and shaped. That means bombs. That means someone needed to place and set-off those bombs. Understand now?"

Chloe gulped. "Do you think it's the army? Dealin' with the bombs somehow?"

"If those shapes in the distance were planes, it's probably the air force, but yes, I do." Chloe blinked. She hadn't seen any shapes. It was slightly embarrassing, being blinder than an old guy.

Still. There were more important things to consider. Mainly: "What the hell do we do now?"

Juliet snorted. "Good question."

All of them turned to David. He was the military man, after all. He was supposed to be trained to know what to do when the sky exploded and nobody was chicken little. His only response was to look dramatically off into the distance and gruffly say "We keep to the plan. If the road is still functional, we'll take it, if not, we'll go around."

The rest of them nodded. Seemed good. It wasn't like they could've gone back to the Bay.

So, forward they went, passing through a small industrial park and a smaller residential area until they reached what remained of the road. The sight drew them out of their cars and forward to the edge of the desolation. The sheer destructive power in front of them was astonishing. What flat surface there used to be was gone. Scorched, pock-marked ground stretched out along the road as far as they could see in each direction, like the Baltic States after the ISS fell. "Why would they..." Dana breathed out. The question was left unfinished, but everyone echoed the sentiment.

David simply pointed.

Ahead, in one of the deepest craters, was a mass of flesh and viscera and teeth. So, so many teeth. Whatever it had been was clearly monstrous, and the gargantuan splatter of its insides-turned-outside spoke of a large being. At that point, all of them were thinking the same thing. "Thank God that thing's dead."

Chloe's mind added a couple of fucks to it, but the sentiment remained.

After a few long, uncomfortable moments of contemplation, they all quietly returned to their cars and turned the hell around. Maybe there was a field they could cut through?

* * *

There wasn't.

They found themselves south-west of Portland with no options. "Shit." David slammed a fist down onto the roof of his car. "Damn, damn, damn, damn!"

From her perch in the bed of her truck, Chloe sighed. "We're gonna have to walk, aren't we?"

David responded with only a frustrated growl. It was answer enough. With a begrudging grumble, Chloe turned and began rooting through the boxes in the back of the truck for anything vital or useful and carryable. After a moment, she threw a couple of bags to Dana, Juliet, and Mrs A with a jovial "Grab your crap, ladies. We're taking the rest of this journey like they did when David was a kid - on foot."

There was a pause as they stared at her in confusion. Chloe rolled her eyes. "'cause they hadn't invented the car yet."

They continued to stare. "I'm saying he's hella old, okay? Fuck, just get on with it."

Some food, some meds, a bizarre crowbar-hammer blend that David had bought from the shopping channel on a drunken whim, a tiny and well-hidden baggie, and of course, duct tape. Duct tape was God, even back then.

She hopped off the truck, bag slung over her shoulder, and walked up to her still bitching step-douche. "Uh... David?"

"Yes, Chloe?" He ground out. He was doing a surprisingly good job of hiding his frustration. Chloe and he had that in common. They felt so much, but hid even more. Truth be told, the man was gnashing his teeth so strongly he'd probably be eating his next few meals with a powdered enamel glaze.

"We're, uh, getting ready to head out. You, uh, you gonna grab your crap?"

It was strangely awkward, trying to talk to him in his heightened state. The silence made it even worse. She was quite worried that, if she tried her usual confrontational gambit, he'd punch her in the face out of some instinctual self-preservation instinct. That happened in the movies, soldiers getting all paranoid and breaking people's noses when they got startled, right? Chloe was a lot of things, but she knew she wasn't stupid.

So, she kept her distance and tried to be nice. Or at least polite.

"David?" She tried again.

"I built this my first year with your mother. She helped out with the interior." He took a deep breath. His voice had that curt shortness that everyone trying to conceal extreme emotion had. "Doesn't mean anything now, I suppose."

"I..." Chloe really had no idea what to say. Before she could start ranting about how she'd lost Joyce too, and probably something about how Joyce had meant far more to Chloe than David, the man straightened.

"We'd best get one with it." He stalked away and opened the boot, rooting through it for his stuff. Chloe got the hell out of the way.

* * *

Walking through a nightmare was even less fun than driving. Plus, Chloe couldn't get the tune to 'walking on sunshine' out of her head after thinking up that little understatement.

We're walking through a nightmare - wooah oh - and don't it feel good!

Surprisingly, they made it almost to the city limits without seeing anything overtly traumatic. Chloe had even begun to walk with her shoulders firm and head high, so clear did the way ahead seem.

She was, despite herself, slightly concerned about David. The man had been quiet since ditching the cars, and he'd taken the few testing pokes of his patience Chloe had sent his way with aplomb. He might've been an asshole, but Chloe was well aware he was the only one of them with any military training.

The problem was, she had no idea what to do about it. So, she did nothing.

The sun shone down on them with all the strength of wet tissue paper, hidden behind darkening clouds. The road ahead stretched out almost infinitely, leading Chloe to smirk as an old quote popped into her head. Kerouac, of all people: Quote Here.

It was one of Rachel's favourites... Is. Is one of her favourites. Chloe knew she was still alive. Surely a city full of zombies wouldn't be enough take someone like Rachel down.

Speaking of the city...

"Oh thank God..." Dana moaned as the first buildings that weren't the usual one-floor suburban boxes came into view. Her slumped shoulders hung over dead, dragging feet, every inch of her aching with exhaustion. Chloe and Rose felt about the same. Juliet, annoyingly to all of them, seemed unbothered.

David was still striding ahead. He ignored all of them.

As they closed on the city proper, Dana and Juliet and their map started to confer with Chloe again. "We should be coming in over here." Dana gestured to one of the outer suburban areas - Beaverton. "Where should we start looking for Rachel?"

Chloe frowned. In all the stress and hurrying, she'd actually forgotten to ask. "Hey, Mrs A?"

"Yes, Chloe?" Rose asked.

"D'ya know where Rach might be? Like, specifically? We don't need to take the roads anymore... obviously, so we're trying to work out where we're gonna go after we get into the city."

"The courthouse. If James was at work, I mean. If not, they'd probably be somewhere near the hotel. It's quite close to the courthouse, luckily." Rose gave a small, happy smile. "It's such a nice place. We always stay there when we go into the city."

"Probably not all that nice anymore, Mrs A, but awesomesauce. We'll get us there." Chloe paused. "Or, well, they will." She thumbed back at Dana and Juliet, who were now arguing loudly over the map.

Mrs A looked small, and quite helpless, at the thought, though this was nothing new as she'd looked small and helpless the entire time. Chloe didn't think she was handling this apocalypse very well. She couldn't point to anything specific, maybe the screaming...

Screaming?

Chloe looked up to see a small crowd of ragtag-looking people charge towards them, shooting at several zombies in frantic and screeching pursuit.

David swore and gestured them to get back, holding up his gun as they dashed out of the way. The crowd - who were armed with nothing heavier than a light handgun - weren't doing much damage to the zombies, even with headshots. One of them seemed very, very upset by this.

"Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die! They won't stop!"

Chloe liked to think she'd been a little more positive about this experience than that guy. So, she strode forward, picking up a loose bit of... something - she was going more on instinct than anything else at that point - and hurled it at the legs of the lead zombies.

As the monsters fell all over the wooden pallet - and how the hell did she lift that without noticing? - she turned and yelled at the gun-wielding people in the vicinity "Shoot them in the head while they're down! Don't let them get back up!"

Surprisingly to her, they listened, and a few moments later their pursuers were dead and the two groups were left staring in gratified suspicion at one another.

Chloe went first. "Hi. I'm Chloe."

One of them nodded. "Gareth. I, uh, I don't really know any of these other people."

A chorus of names followed, from people with a variety of blood-stained and highly fashionable clothing and hairstyles. "Monty. Billie. Dashiell. Cleo. Mishka. Teigen. Hugo."

Gareth, seeming to have the most confidence, stepped out of the crowd to talk properly. "Are you.. are you heading into the city?"

His voice was stuttery, and he shook like a leaf the entire time. Most confidence did not necessarily mean a lot.

Rose, surprisingly, took point from then on, explaining their destination and the threat of the bombs. One of the crowd, a young woman that couldn't have been older than fifteen, began to cry. Another, an older woman with a shock of electric grey hair, began shaking her head very pointedly. "They... they wouldn't _do_ that. Not while there are still people alive in here. We're citizens, damnit."

Rose blinked desperately, turning and staring at the others with an entreating look. Dana took over. "She's not lying, ma'am. It's part of the FEMA protocols for a massive outbreak like this. The internet always joked about those stupid zombie protocols, none of us ever thought they'd be really used, huh?"

The woman shook her head again, and her jaw tightened. "No, we're going to stay. We can find somewhere safe, out in the countryside. That's what all those films said to do. We should go away from the cities."

Dana, her empathetic sensibilities apparently brought up by this group's plight, smiled amiably at the group. "That's a good idea. Just try not to go for the Oregon countryside, okay? Please?"

The woman ignored her, focusing on persuading the rest of her group. To their misfortune, they seemed to be listening. Dana's impassioned interjections slid off them like water. "My cousin, Randy, he has a cabin out in the forest. We can go there! There's food, and the zombies won't be able to find it!"

As they came to some bedraggled consensus, Dana's shoulders dropped. She'd tried. She looked to David to try something, anything else, but he just kept staring off into the distance, finger wobbling gently toward and away from the trigger of his gun.

The group hurried on, and the Arcadia Bay-ers turned in resignation to continue. A voice called out "Hey!" They turned back to see Gareth had hung a little behind the others, and he gave a sad little smile. "We're fucked, aren't we?"

It, uh... wasn't a question that needed an answer.

"Okay, so, uh... if you're going through the city, avoid Cedar Mills and Beaverton. We just came from there and... it's bad." His eyes were haunted. "Real bad. Go south past Raleigh, or north through Bonny Slope. Just... avoid Beaverton. You'll thank me."

Rose smiled, offered thanks for their group, and Gareth headed off with the others to die.

"So, uh..." Chloe muttered. "Do we go for Cedar Mills or not?"

Dana and Juliet checked the map. "If we want to go round, then it'll add an extra... two hours to our trip."

Chloe groaned. "Ugh. We shoulda just gone offroad and took our fucking chances. Walking sucks. And besides, that dude coulda been wrong. Or they all coulda gone by now - there was a fuckload of them on the road the army bombed the shit out of, right?"

David stayed quiet.

"Great. Well, how bad can it fucking be?"

* * *

"This is fine! I don't know what that dude was on, but either he's high as balls or the zombies move hella quickly."

Chloe had practical strode along through the entire neighbourhood, arms swinging sarcastically like a stereotypical British Bobby. The girl was definitely playing it up for her audience, and from Dana and Juliet's titters they appreciated it greatly. That's the real human spirit - even in a nightmare, we can still find stupid shit to laugh at.

She turned back to glare at David. "It's fine, David! Come on, look at this place! If there were any zombies here - which I fuckin' doubt, by the way - they're hella gone now."

Denial really is sad. Especially how two people can feel the same way about the same idea in two very different instances. As Chloe stood in the middle of a crossroads, yelling over to her apparently depressed stepfather, she noticed something suddenly pierce her vision, like a needle in her eye.

She groaned, and the others immediately went on alert. "What, Chloe? What is it?"

She lifted a shaky hand and pointed, and they all turned to see a seething, furious mass of the infected churning in the street.

And every last one of them was looking at her.

"Run."

"What?"

"Run!"

Her last yell seemed a catalyst for the horde. The closest bunch began to stumble in their direction, arms outstretched. Rose gave off little squeaks of terror as she ran, sticking close to David. Chloe felt oddly offended for a moment, before realising that he was the heavily armed one, so it really did make sense.

It was unfortunate, really, American road's being so wide meant there was nowhere to hide. No cover to take. Every last thing in that horde could see them. "Look!" She pointed. "The overpass!"

More of the infected had crawled out of the windows of the various stores along the road. They, however, stayed crawling. Apparently whatever virus that turned them definitely didn't make them smart. As her dad always told her though, dumb things were still dangerous.

They kept running for the overpass, dodging the abandoned cars littering the entry and exit to the highway. Apparently people had ditched their cars and tried to run. She spared a glance backward. They were probably still running now.

They hit the embankment together, scarpering up the slight incline to the main road. The infected were still closing. "What now?"

David pointed. "Go North!" He loosed off a round at one of the closer zombies, knocking it backward into a few of its drooling comrades.

Chloe had no better ideas. "Right. Come on!"

They passed a few bigger stores, and for a moment Chloe thought of stopping there. To hide, not to shop. But there were still infected in view, and there was no way a glass-fronted box was anything more than a display for zombie dinners.

Luckily, the horde had needed to slow to climb onto the overpass and many had fallen over the barrier. There were far fewer chasing them than before.

A sign on the bridge ahead, she noted morbidly, read 'walker road, exit one'. She tried not to think of it as a sign of fate, just of geography.

They kept on. A mile later, just as the portents of landmarks indicated, Walker Road ran over their path. Chloe waved over to the abundant treeline, yelling back (without waiting for the others to pay attention) "Over there! We can try lose them in the trees!"

They dashed in. Initially, the foliage was more of a hindrance than a help.

"Fucking! Piece! Of! Shit! Logs! Take that, twig!"

Chloe's irritable yelling was also more hindrance, and likely called every zombie in a mile radius to them before Juliet planted a hand over the other girl's mouth and hissed "Shut up! Do you want to bring more of them down on us?"

Chloe bristled and immaturely licked the girl's hand. Juliet immediately whipped it away, glaring disgustedly at her. "What-"

Chloe interrupted her with an eyeroll. "Fine. You're right. Wipe that shit off and lets go already."

Juliet gave Chloe an affronted look before exaggeratedly wiping her hand off on Chloe's shirt. Chloe just shrugged, winked at Juliet and started running again.

They burst out of the trees into - unknown to them at the time - the small surburban community of West Slope. The place was quite nice, Chloe noted while absently dodging around a hedge. It was a shame that a whole fuckload of infected were probably wandering around it now.

The next few roads were... well, picturesque. Quaint, small little houses with large gardens and plenty of plant life. Rose smiled at it all. Chloe was not so impressed. "It looks like a fuckin' retirement community."

The others didn't comment, preferring to ignore the bitching girl and keep moving. And so they did, making it quite far before they found another problem. Or another problem found them, anyway.

It found them on another wide road; four lanes, filled with abandoned cars. It headed northward onto route 26, the highway they needed to take to get into the heart of Portland. For the first leg of the journey, it seemed clear. They did their best to sneak from tree to tree, from porch to porch, darting in and out of whatever cover they could find, and for awhile it worked.

Until they got to the motorway. Chloe almost gasped as, out the corner of her eye, David was about to step in reach of a near-crushed zombie grasping out from under the bonnet of a ruined car. Instead, she made a cardinal error. She yelled out desperately "David!"

The emotion surprised her, and the volume surprised David, as he whirled and let off a panic-fueled shot at the zombie. He took it out, but he also happened to hit one of the more delicate components of the vehicle. No, not the fuel tank. The alarm. (AN1)

The car began to wail like a banshee chasing a bat out of hell.

Chloe swore. Loudly. It didn't help.

"We have got to go. Now!"

It was too late. The sound of smashing windows and thudding of fist on wood meant everything was already alerted. Chloe just swore again as infected started appearing around them.

They just started running once again, heading north as best they could. On the final stretch of road, one lined with apartments, more loud smashes could be heard. David and Rose had somehow fallen further behind than she'd thought - she knew the dead swarming from the apartments would close on them before they'd catch up.

David, apparently, knew this too. "Go! We'll meet you at the courthouse."

Chloe pulled the handgun from where she'd kept it hidden in her jacket, rolling her eyes at David's apparently-instinctive disappointed glare. Honestly, she was surprised she'd managed this long. She was sure he'd've seen it during one of the panic-fests she'd whipped it out for. Before he could yell, she waved her hand to tell him to get the fuck out of there, before turning and running with Dana and Juliet towards the highway.

She didn't see them leave, just the crush of infected pressing together around where she last saw them.

[End of Act I]

* * *

AN1 - Sorry. The exploding fuel tank thing is a movie/video game myth. Doesn't happen. All that happens when you shoot a fuel tank is, believe it or not, that fuel leaks out.


End file.
